Visual Studio

Not to be confused with Visual Studio Code or Visual Studio for Mac.

Visual Studio
Developer(s)Microsoft
Stable release
2022 17.11.5[1] Edit this on Wikidata / 8 October 2024
Written in
[2]
Operating system
Available in13 languages
List of languages
Chinese, Czech, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish and Turkish[4]
TypeIntegrated development environment
LicenseFreemium[5]
Websitevisualstudio.microsoft.com

Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) developed by Microsoft. It is used to develop computer programs including websites, web apps, web services and mobile apps. Visual Studio uses Microsoft software development platforms including Windows API, Windows Forms, Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Microsoft Store and Microsoft Silverlight. It can produce both native code and managed code.

Visual Studio includes a code editor supporting IntelliSense (the code completion component) as well as code refactoring. The integrated debugger works as both a source-level debugger and as a machine-level debugger. Other built-in tools include a code profiler, designer for building GUI applications, web designer, class designer, and database schema designer. It accepts plug-ins that expand the functionality at almost every level—including adding support for source control systems (like Subversion and Git) and adding new toolsets like editors and visual designers for domain-specific languages or toolsets for other aspects of the software development lifecycle (like the Azure DevOps client: Team Explorer).

Visual Studio supports 36 different programming languages [citation needed] and allows the code editor and debugger to support (to varying degrees) nearly any programming language, provided a language-specific service exists. Built-in languages include C,[6] C++, C++/CLI, Visual Basic .NET, C#, F#,[7] JavaScript, TypeScript, XML, XSLT, HTML, and CSS. Support for other languages such as Python,[8] Ruby, Node.js, and M among others is available via plug-ins. Java (and J#) were supported in the past.

The most basic edition of Visual Studio, the Community edition, is available free of charge. The slogan for Visual Studio Community edition is "Free, fully-featured IDE for students, open-source and individual developers". As of February 19, 2024, Visual Studio 2022 is a current production-ready version. Visual Studio 2013, 2015 and 2017 are on Extended Support, while 2019 is on Mainstream Support.[9]

  1. ^ https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/releases/2022/release-notes#17.11.5. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  2. ^ Copsey, Reed Jr. (December 13, 2011). "Which language is Visual Studio developed in?". Microsoft Developer Network. Retrieved December 10, 2022.
  3. ^ "Visual Studio 2022 Product Family System Requirements". Microsoft. Retrieved December 29, 2021.
  4. ^ "Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 Language Pack". Microsoft. Archived from the original on September 12, 2016. Retrieved August 29, 2016.
  5. ^ "Visual Studio Downloads". Visual Studio. Microsoft. Archived from the original on December 26, 2018. Retrieved November 23, 2013.
  6. ^ Brenner, Pat (July 19, 2013). "C99 library support in Visual Studio 2013". Visual C++ Team Blog. Microsoft. Archived from the original on August 5, 2014. Retrieved November 7, 2021.
  7. ^ "F# at Microsoft Research". Microsoft. Archived from the original on April 1, 2019. Retrieved July 22, 2019.
  8. ^ "Best Python IDE For Python Programming". Pythonic Quest. January 13, 2017. Archived from the original on January 18, 2017. Retrieved January 17, 2017.
  9. ^ "Visual Studio Product Lifecycle and Servicing". Microsoft Docs. October 26, 2021. Retrieved November 8, 2021.