Using VS Code

I've used the Arduino IDE briefly but would love to be able to use VS Code instead. Now I've seen the following resources which seem to be useful howtos but would like a little bit of guidance as to which one is likely to give me the greatest chance of success.

Maker Pro
Sparkfun
Electronics Lab
Arrow

I know there has been similar questions on this board over the last year or two but things move on so quickly so would appreciate some input from experienced users who've gone down this route.

Many thanks

I've just used the IDE for 10 years now, has been good for me. Using 1.8.12 now with MightyCode added to support '1284P chips.

What's the IDE lacking for you?

I have substantial faith in Sparkfun...
(But the only thing I’ve actually used vscode for was host-side C++, and I found it relatively painful. (Edit a json file to make compile work? Really?). For arduino/avr I’ve stuck to the ide, Atmel studio, emacs, and mplabx, and the command line...)

I haven't really got a good reason project wise to use VS Code over the default web based IDE as I'm just starting out. But having used VS Code it comes packed with features such as code completion, being able to switch between code tabs easily, spot errors instantly and I'm sure there is a lot more.

Just added the PlatformIO extension in VS Code and it does look impressive. Also worth taking a look at PlatformIO's quick start guide here.

There is also an interesting look at this open source project by Andrew Spiess on YT here.

Andrew is quick to give credit to the Arduino IDE for bringing programming to beginners and he is right.