| Visual Studio 2019 Preview Integrates Live Share |
| Written by Kay Ewbank |
| Thursday, 06 December 2018 |
|
The first preview of the next major version of Visual Studio has been released and shown off at Connect(), Microsoft's developer conference. In terms of features, this release has a new start window that is aimed at getting developers into their code faster and more easily. There's also increased coding space, improved search, and AI-powered assistance with IntelliCode.
The improved search is smarter with support for fuzzy string searching to help find what you are looking for even when misspelled , as in the word 'code' misspelt as cdoe in the following image (developers misspelling things, perish the thought):
The options for collaboration have also received attention, and the preview comes with built-in access to Visual Studio Live Share. This lets a team collaborate on the same codebase without the need to synchronize code or to configure the same development tools, settings, or environment, and despite the unlikely sounding nature of this, it does seem to work. The push behind IntelliCode continues in this preview. IntelliCode could be described as smarter IntelliSense, though both attempt to work out what you're typing to help you complete the statement. Machine learning is used to make IntelliCode understand coding context based on a project's existing code. The extension shows you the recommended code completion options at the top of a list of suggestions, marked by stars.
 The suggestions in IntelliCode are based on an Azure machine learning model trained on over 2,000 GitHub repos. The repos ranged from machine learning frameworks, through web frameworks, to general purpose scripting. The machine learning model is complete so the VS add-on that implements it doesn't have to look anything up on GitHub or Azure. The version in Visual Studio 2019 can include code in private repositories, and it also adds support for C++ and XAML, while the version for Visual Studio Code includes JavaScript, TypeScript, and Java support. The video below shows off IntelliCode for C++, as well as creating an app that targets Linux as well as Windows. Another area to have been improved is code refactoring. The editor now includes knowledge of specific coding that can be improved, such as changing for-loops to LINQ queries and converting tuples to named-structs. The recommendations for change are optional, and you can decide whether or not to take the advice on how to change code to be 'better'.
More InformationRelated ArticlesVisual Studio Roadmap Promises Better Debugger Visual Studio For Mac Improves Reliability Visual Studio IntelliCode Infers C# Coding Conventions Visual Studio For Mac Launched Visual Studio Java Gets IntelliCode Visual Studio Python Gets AI-Based IntelliCode Visual Studio 2019 Will Include IntelliCode The AI In The IDE - IntelliCode In Visual Studio
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