Project Name: VSCode
In the following section you should only enter the information that you found on the project website. Some of the answers will be impossible to find, others may be very hard to find. Do not google for answers.
Project website: VScode
What is the purpose of the project:
According to VScode's website, the project is supposed to be a "delightfully frictionless edit-build-debug cycle means less time fiddling with your environment, and more time executing on your ideas."
How easy was it to find information about contributing on the website? The information was found by scrolling to the bottom of the website, clicking a link to the project's github repository, and then the CONTRIBUTING.md was immediately visible.
Contributing instructions: main CONTRIBUTING.MD
URL for the code repository: Code repository
Bug/Issue tracker link: Bug/Issue tracker
Mailing list: Not found
Chat channel: Not found
Other communication channels:
License: MIT License
Is it OSI approved license: MIT License
Programming Language(s):
- C++
- C#
- CSS
- Dart
- Dockerfile
- F#
- Go
- HTML
- Java
- JavaScript
- JSON
- Julia
- Less
- Markdown
- PHP
- PowerShell
- Python
- R
- Ruby
- Rust
- SCSS
- T-SQL
- TypeScript
URL for contributing instructions: [Contributing instructions](insert link here)
Are the contributing instructions clear?
URL for code of conduct / community norms / community guildelines: Community Guidelines
URL for instructions for users to download and install the package: here.
Are these instructions clear? Do you think they would be easy to follow? Yes, there are little to no needed instructions. Clicking download on the site will download VScode.
URL for instructions for how to install development environment: here
Are these instruction clear? Do you think they would be easy to follow? These instructions are clear, and contain the exact commands that need to be run to download each necessary part of the development environment.
Number of contributors: 2147 contributors
Usernames of three contributors with largest number of commits; for each of them list the link to their latest commit:
- [bpasero] (13,382 commits) - Their Latest Commit
- [jrieken] (11,973 commits) - Their Latest Commit
- [Tyriar] (10,759 commits) - Their Latest Commit
Number of commits: 129,962 commits
Latest commit
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link to the commit: Latest commit
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who made that commit: meganrogge
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what type of work was commited? issue #241231 was fixed
Issues
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how many open issues are there: 8505 Open Issues
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url for the last issue created: Last issue created
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how many users discuss the issue: 3 person
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when was the issue reported: Feb 19th, 2025
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how many closed issues are there: 181,716 closed issues
- url for the last issue closed: Last issue closed
- how many users discussed the issue: 2 people
- when was the issue reported: Feb 19th, 2025
- when was the issue closed: Feb 19th, 2025
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how active is the discussion on the issues: very active
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example of a lot of good discussion: Good discussion
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example of an issue that does not have much discussion: Not much discussion
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are there issues marked "good for newbies", "beginner" or some other indicators that imply that they are good for beginner contributors:
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how many of such issues are there? 0 issues
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look at a few of them, do they look beginner friendly? Not really
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are there issues marked "documentation" or some other indicators that imply that they are documentation (user or developer specific): No
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how many of such issues are there? 0
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look at a few of them, do you think you could submit a fix? N/A
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Pull requests
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how many open pull requests are there: 502 pull requests
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url for the last pull request created: Last Pull Request created
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when was the last pull request made: 2/23/2025, 11:36PM (EST)
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url for the oldest pull request created: Oldest Pull Request created
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when was the oldest pull request made: 11/19/2015
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how many closed pull requests are there: 36,462 closed pull requests
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url for the last pull request closed: Last Pull Request closed
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how many users discussed the pull request: 2 users
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when was the pull request made: 2/23/2025, 11:36PM (EST), so it's the very last one that was open
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when was the pull request closed: 02/24/2025 00:04AM (EST)
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do maintainers respond quickly to pull requests when they are opened? the last closed request was open for 30 minutes only, so I would assume yes!
Each member of your group should attempt to configure the development environemnt for this project. Complete the following for each member:
Name: Polina Belova
Operating system: macOS
Was the installation successful? (if not, explain what went wrong and what you did to try to remedy it) - I already have VSCode insatlled on my device and I remeber it being an exteremely starightforward process!
How long did the whole process take? - less than 2 minutes
Name: Lulu Zhu
Operating system: macOS
Was the installation successful? (if not, explain what went wrong and what you did to try to remedy it) - Yes. I already have VSCode installed in my laptop that I use it very frequently.
How long did the whole process take? - 1 to 2 minutes.
Name: David Yu
Operating system: Windows
Was the installation successful? (if not, explain what went wrong and what you did to try to remedy it) - Yes, I already had VScode installed
How long did the whole process take? - Around 1 minute
How friendly is this project for beginner contributors?
The project is not beginner friendly. While there are clear instructions in ways to contribute, there are no issues designated to be beginner/starter friendly. The project's issues are also opened and closed very actively, with over 5k open issues currently. VScode is too robust and active for a beginner to easily approach.
Do the maintainers respond helpfully to questions in issues?
The maintainers do respond helpfully to questions in issues. The majority of questions in issues are responded to, and those that arent are assigned a triage needed label. These include issues opened within a few hours, and so the maintainers are very active.
Are people friendly in the issues, discussion forum, and chat (for example, IRC or Slack)?
People are polite in the issues, but most people not necessarily overly friendly. Responses are usually pretty dry and concise, but this varies greatly on the replying maintainer.
Do pull requests get reviewed?
Pull requests are very often reviewed. In February alone the pull requests are 71% complete, with 310 open and 793 closed. Pull requests are reviewed quickly and may be merged within hours, with the last one being merged less than an hour ago.
Do maintainers thank people for their contributions?
Maintainers do not publicly thank people in the closed pull requests. But the CONTRIBUTING.md does have lines thanking interested contributors.
Are there special skills required to contribute to the project? If so, what are they?
The skills required to contribute to the project are tied to general cs knowledge and potentially familiarity with the IDE, but does not more background knowledge.
Are there any special hardware/software requirements to be able to contribute to the project? If so, what are they?
Computers need to be able to run Git, Node.JS on x64 or ARM64 version >=20.x, Python, and a C/C++ compiler tool chain the computer's platform. However, these requirements are generally met by most modern computers and are not special.