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Comment by piyush_soni | Hacker News Reader

I can't help but notice how difficult it is (still) in both Visual Studio and Visual Studio code to add syntax highlighting/intellisense features for a new language, whereas Notepad++ can do it so easily by just adding a simple XML file of commands and their parameters. I tried writing an Extension in Visual Studio for the "Scheme Programming Language" and tried to understand all of their infrastructure for it, but the complexity involved just turned me off.

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That's because Intellisense is not about regexp matching.

Consider how in Emacs there are usually simple packages for a language (say, ruby-mode), and complex ones for live-analysis (say, robe).

Yes, I would expect a similar 'limited support' by Visual Studio proper (may-be by simple regexp matching). I think Notepad++'s implementation is not very smart, but it does the basic job of syntax highlighting, function name auto-completion, arguments hinting etc. You should need to write a detailed extension using Visual Studio's Format Specifiers and Classifiers etc. only when you need a deeper integration IMO.

There are samples showing how to take a TextMate grammar and wrap it into a VSCode extension. TextMate's system is a bit more complex than Notepad++, but not by much. That will give you the basics at least. (Beyond that you'd need to write a "language service" which can be as easy or as hard as you want to dive into compiler trivia.)

I've heard that Visual Studio "15" Preview (not VS 2015, but the next version in development) already supports TextMate language grammars too, and that it is intended to make it easier to eventually share language services between VS Code and VS "Proper", but other than skimming BUILD Talks on the subject I don't know how far along those efforts are.

In terms of ease of extensibility, I haven't found anything better than Howl (http://howl.io).

Disclosure: I'm one of the contributors.

This needs much improvement also given the lack of backward compatibility in the styles' XML of the current VS 2015, essentially forcibly deprecating studiostyl.es...

Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code, despite their similar names, are two completely different editors. VS Code does not in any way make VS obsolete.

Doesn't the Clojure syntax higlighting work for you? I've been using it with a variety of LISPs for a while.

Huh. I didn't know much about Clojure so never thought of comparing. I see that there are many similarities! Will try to install it in Visual Studio (the IDE) to see if it helps!

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