Running Intel Fortran in Visual Studio Code instead of Visual Studio IDE

[Kelly__Industrial_Al]

Perhaps this already been addressed in a previous post, but I am wondering if Intel Fortran runs in Visual Studio Code now?

If so, is there a downloadable VSCode extension to do this?

And, will VSCode replace Visual Studio 20xx as the standard IDE on Windows for Intel Fortran?

Thanks! Jeff

[Igor_V_Intel]

Please refer to Release Notes for this kind of info: https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-fortran-compiler-release-notes

Note that VSCode is not listed as a supported IDE for latest 2020 version (compiler version 19.1).

[lanrebr]

Would Intel consider including in your plans adding support for VSCode? It will solve many problems...

[Steve_Lionel]

What sort of problems would it solve? Keep in mind that Intel Fortran depends on Microsoft Visual C++ and the Visual Studio Debugger.

[lanrebr]

Yes, the current dependencies are understood. However, Microsoft is making a lot of improvements on VSCode and it is gaining adoption as a generic development environment. It supports now remote connections to runtime server, azure devops/git integration, Microsoft cloud deployment, workflow integration, etc. See
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.zdnet.com/google-amp/article/visual-studio-code-how-microsofts-any-os-any-programming-language-any-software-plan-is-paying-off/
Other existing Fortran VSCcode plugins are not as good, and we need something better to allow the Intel Fortran code to be part of this, along with other languages. Perhaps I am wrong, but it seems that Visual Studio is lagging behind.

[Steve_Lionel]

I use VS Code to build firmware for my 3D printer, but I don't see that it has any advantages for Intel Fortran over Visual Studio. Visual Studio has remote server connection, git integration and more. 

[lanrebr]

Yes, there is no denying that Visual Studio is very powerful and even more powerful than VSCode. But VSCode is moving faster towards becoming the single tool that the junior developers are using for coding everything, that is, except Fortran. To get started with Fortran they don't really need all the very advanced features that Visual Studio code offers, they just need a minimum editor/compiler/run time that allows them to pass the unit test. But when the choice comes to write new code people start with Python or Java because is what is available in the VSCode editor out of the box. The moment you suggest them to use Fortran instead they see this massive installation and learning curve that discourages any further attempts and learning. But writing basic Fortran code is not that difficult and if we had a decent Fortran editor in VSCode integrated with the Intel Compiler they could easily learn it and start using it along with Python and other tools. What we have now is not good and fixing this will go a long way with the new folks and we just need something to bridge the gap.

[lanrebr]

I should also added that I see a number of senior Fortran developers editing Fortran code using notepad, vi and emacs because they don’t want (or they can’t) install Visual Studio in their laptops or in the run time system. They can easily install and run VSCode there but since is no decent Fortran editor so we keep on using notepad.

[Steve_Lionel]

They can't use the Intel compiler without installing Visual Studio, but there's nothing wrong with using Notepad or something similar to edit sources - I do it all the time if I am going to be building from the command line. If you want to debug, you have to use Visual Studio.

[mecej4]

I do a lot of reworking and adapting old Fortran codes. The tools that I use the most in such work are utilities such as Grep, Ed, Sed, Make, Awk, etc. Visual editors are of little use in such work.

For writing new code, I use Notepad++ and other similar editors. I have little use for Visual Studio and VScode .

However, other people have other needs and other preferences as to tools, which I respect.

Us old Fortran programmers do not want whippersnappers telling us what editor or IDE to use or missionaries telling us what position we must adopt.

[Nikita_Tropin]

Maybe with release of oneAPI Intel will get back to that topic to integrate Intel Fortran with VS Code? It is really great that you did integration of Intel C++ with VS Code and Eclipse. Can you please do the same for Fortran?

[JohnNichols]

@Nikita_Tropin , there are horses for courses, and in a similar way there are IDE's, now the earliest good IDE that I encountered was written in the macro language of VEDIT.  You could write and run and get the errors all in VEDIT.  It is still the "best" editor for large files, by large files I mean ones that cause notepad++, MySQL to take to long to respond or simply not be able to see the whole file at once or give you the dreaded unable to open file.  This is a problem for people who do really large data sets, and for dxf generation.   

VS Studio is really good, one can do just about anything you want, but it has a lot of stuff hidden in the property pages and so if you want to make fine corrections, then the ifx or ifc are the best route.  So this is a personal preference, and really the old timers on this page see VS Code as the third and last option.  

The other issue is learning a third method. 

So this perhaps is not the forum to push VS Code, particularly as Microsoft is different distinct and away from Intel 

[JohnNichols]

@Nikita_Tropin , one is of course reminded by this series of posts of the famous statistical analysis in Michener's Hawaii on the missionaries, who I am sad to say came from my church, I have always thought it would be fun to repeat the hand analysis using MC simulation and Fortran to confirm the conclusions.

If you have not read Hawaii - I would recommend his books for their general introduction to science and historical ideas. 

[andrew_4619]

I was not aware a VS Code and have just has a quick read up. It seems it doesn't add anything a present compared to the normal VS but maybe it indicates a direction of travel at MSFT.

[erhanturan80]

Hello,

I'm probably too late for the discussion. Not sure whether I might be regarded as an old Fortran Programmer. My very first programming language was F77 and ever since I keep using Fortran, probably more than 20 years.

I respect the comments from Dr. Fortran and all other experts but things are too different now. Yes Visual Studio is superior (way better than the Compaq Fortran that I was using ages ago). Then again it only runs on Windows. I don't use Windows anymore. All in Linux now, it increased my productivity I don't know at which scale. 

And it is not just Fortran anymore, we are using Python, JavaScript, shell scripts, SQL codes, JSON files, REST APIS, Axios... And for all of these, VS Code works perfectly. VS Code's power does not only come from being a cross-platform IDE or its light-weight installation, it is also the community driven extensions. 

Of course, best way forward would be MS developing a version for Linux but adding a little assistance for VS Code on Intel Compilers shouldn't hurt. I use Modern Fortran extension in VS Code along with fortls and it it all of the necessary ingredient for me to run Fortran. Though this setup is pushing me towards gfortran which is a solid compiler but not optimized.

If strategically, Intel wants more people to use Intel Fortran (under oneAPI the Linux Fortran is free of charge which used to require a license = give the software for free and they will use your hardware), and I guess that is the plan, so this newly growing community better be not discarded.

A couple of guidelines, or a simple add-in, to incorporate VS Code with Intel Compiler would be more than enough. That's my two-cents. Thanks.

Erhan

[Steve_Lionel]

Things are indeed different now, and https://community.intel.com/t5/Intel-Fortran-Compiler/Visual-Studio-Code-support-with-Modern-Fortran/td-p/1406360/ shows how to use ifort in VS Code. I wasn't able to make this work on Windows because I couldn't find the place to configure the Modern Fortran extension, but perhaps others could figure it out.

You do still need Visual Studio installed for debugging, however.

By the way, Intel Fortran is free on all platforms. Visual Studio Community Edition is also free for nearly everyone.

[erhanturan80]

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the doc, I wasn't aware - my bad. Let me go through it. 

Debugging is a problem I know, then I should be programming very carefully

Merry Christmas, Happy new year!

Erhan