Microsoft’s release of Visual Studio 2015 RC exhibited the company’s work to make the tool more useful across all mainstream development languages. Microsoft Program Manager Jordan Matthiesen has detailed some of the additions that have been made to specifically address JavaScript development. Matthiesen explains that his JavaScript tools team is focusing on improved editor support for JavaScript libraries, ECMAScript 2015 (formerly ECMAScript 6) language additions, and better ways to manage large JavaScript projects.
With respect to library support, VS2015 will support AngularJS 1.X and RequireJS out of the box. Support in this instance means that the editor will provide the tools expected from VS (IntelliSense, Go to Definition, etc) without requiring a developer to first install an extension. The VS editor also has added recognition and support for JSDoc comments so writing new code or browsing existing libraries is easier to document.
Several (but not all) new language constructs described in ECMAScript 2015 are now supported natively by VS2015’s editor. Matthiesen directs developers to User Voice to vote on what is important for his team to work on next.
JavaScript editing is gaining support to take advantage of Visual Studio’s task list, so now it's possible to leave notes in the source file (// TODO: or // HACK: ) that will show up as reminders in the task list. This makes it easy to follow up in future editing sessions. Similarly, since Visual Studio has a greater understanding of JavaScript, its navigation bar can provide easier navigation in a source file (such as moving to a class or function definition).
These additions can be sampled now in the Visual Studio 2015 Release Candidate.
