How to Use Visual Studio Code for C++ on Mac

As a developer, I've often found myself wondering why we need another editor or IDE when we already have Qt Creator, a perfectly good and Qt-specific IDE at our disposal. However, in my experience, Visual Studio Code (VS Code) simply does some things better than Qt Creator, despite having its own set of limitations.

For those who are unfamiliar, Visual Studio Code has very little to do with Microsoft Visual Studio, which is Microsoft's comprehensive IDE/compiler/debugger package for C# and C++ development available on Windows and macOS. While many developers may be familiar with Microsoft Visual Studio, VS Code is a lightweight code editor that runs on all three major operating systems: Windows, macOS, and Linux.

One of the main reasons I prefer using VS Code over Qt Creator is its stability on my Mac. Unfortunately, Qt Creator doesn't always have the same level of stability on macOS as it does on Linux and Windows. This has led me to configure both editors to auto-save and auto-reload so that I can seamlessly switch between them.

In fact, my current work setup uses both VS Code and Qt Creator in parallel. While some tasks are better suited for Qt Creator, others are more efficiently handled by VS Code. For example, when working on a large codebase, I find that VS Code's debugging features and IntelliSense integration make it easier to navigate and understand the code.

Of course, one of the most common questions you might ask is 'Why use another editor or IDE at all if we have Qt Creator?' And that's a valid question. However, for me, the main reason is that VS Code simply does some things better than Qt Creator – and other things worse, which I'll discuss later.

In this blog post, I'd like to share with you some of the experiences we've had here at KDAB using Visual Studio Code for Qt development. As software developers, we're always on the lookout for tools that make us more productive, and VS Code has certainly become a valuable addition to our toolkit.

How to use visual studio code for c++ on mac