Microsoft VS Code is relevant for different developer personas including front-end, full-stack, data engineers, and nontraditional developers such as site reliability engineers, engineers and system administrators. Last October, Microsoft partnered with Adobe to release the Adobe XD extension for Visual Studio Code, which enables designers to create design packages for developers across their organization to use when building applications. 'Thus, it has a lot of integrations which improve developer productivity.'

'It's got a nice UX, it's free, it's nimble - and thus performant, it's multi-platform, and it's straightforward to extend,' said Jeffrey Hammond, an analyst at Forrester. Gamma joined Microsoft because he envisioned a new standard for browser-based developer tooling that would be as successful as the IDE had been for the desktop, he said. 'People think VS Code was an overnight success, but it was 10 years in the making,' said Erich Gamma, technical fellow at Microsoft and creator of VS Code, at the VS Code Day virtual event on January 27. The tool now has 14 million monthly active users, Microsoft said. Microsoft VS Code's popularity lies in the fact it can be used by any developer, in almost any language, on any device. Last year, VS Code gained five million new users because of Microsoft's increased focus on collaboration, remote development, and making Visual Studio Code the home for different kinds of developer personas.

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