Do YOU know the difference? Would it hurt to be more concrete? I'm going to venture a guess based on my assumptions, which are probably wrong, but then we can at least start a discussion:
-VS Code doesn't support solution-wide refactoring like renaming classes or moving a method from one class to another
-VS Code doesn't support runtime debugging (breakpoints)
-VS Code doesn't have a visual editor
-VS Code doesn't have memory or performance profiling tools
-VS Code doesn't have source control integration
-VS Code doesn't have an integrated build tool (MSBuild)
> VS Code doesn't support solution-wide refactoring like renaming classes or moving a method from one class to another
F2 "Rename Symbol" (works on Go with gorename). Can't imagine using Roslyn doesn't (or won't soon enough) allow the same. From the readme:
Great C# editing support, including Syntax Highlighting, IntelliSense, Go to Definition, Find All References, etc.
> VS Code doesn't support runtime debugging (breakpoints)
It does. CMD+Shift+D goes to the Debug sidebar. CMD+Shift+P Debug shows a bunch of commands. From the readme:
Debugging support for .NET Core (CoreCLR). NOTE: Mono and Desktop CLR debugging is not supported.
> VS Code doesn't have source control integration
CMD+Shift+P git whatevs is used daily here as well as Ctrl+Shift+G for the git sidebar that can show (editable) diffs. Both the gutter and scroll bar are annotated with git info.
> VS Code doesn't have an integrated build tool (MSBuild)
MSBuild comes with .Net Core and is (probably) invoked with the language-agnostic CMD+Shift+B (run build task). C# ext may have more.
> VS Code doesn't have NPM or Nuget integration
There are both NPM and NuGet extensions available.
Now of course if what you want is all of this nicely packaged and wrapped in a GUI, well, obviously VS Code is not an IDE (as VS is) but that's precisely its value proposition.
I stands for "Integrated" in IDE. Project generation, code inspection, source control, database access, refactoring, debugging, test running, etc are integrated.
Visual Studio Code generates project via third party tool - dotnet new. Refactoring, code completion is done via third party tool - Roslyn (?). Etc. It's an editor with plugins. Unlike Visual Studio or Jetbrains Rider.
It would not hurt, but it would be an arduous and unnecessary task. Most people know the difference, and if you do not, you can read the Wikipedia article on IDE. There is no need to have a discussion on the differences, it is not remotely interesting or fruitful.
I guess what annoyed me was that after thebeardedone said he'd googled for 15 minutes trying to figure out the difference between VS Code and VS, 4 answers to his post gave absolutely no clarification as to what the differences were, including yours. If you look up the definition of an IDE on Wikipedia, VS Code falls into that category.
