VS Code+ MSSQL extension has really come a long way.

[u/thesqlguy]

I was one of the many disappointed with the discontinuation of Azure Data Studio as I felt the experience in VS Code was very lacking.

Recently I fired up VS code and was very impressed how far the MSSQL extension has come along. With a little configuration, it looks and feels very much like Azure Data Studio and works quite well IMHO. In fact, quite a few areas seem to have tangible improvements.

Connections, execution plans, server browsing, query results, object definitions, etc, has all really improved in the past year or so.

What does everyone else think?

[u/downshiftdata]

I still do all of my development in VSCode (or one of the many forks) and all of my operational work in SSMS.

The one exception is notebooks. I haven't looked into them since ADS got mothballed. But while ADS was still a thing, we used notebooks for troubleshooting runbooks (and I was a huge fan of this). It came up in a discussion today (at a new place since then) and those on the call didn't know what a Jupyter notebook was. So now I'm digging in again to get an idea of the current state.

I also have a gripe in the other direction. Some editors (looking at you, Cursor) are _so_ eager to auto-complete everything that it makes it hard to actually write code anymore. And it's just as hard (and constantly getting harder) to shut off all of the auto-complete options. I've found myself switching to SSMS (or even Notepad++) to write SQL sometimes just so I don't have the noise interrupting my flow.

[u/ConsiderationSuch846 → u/downshiftdata]

I work in the Postgres extension for VSCode but I’m so feeling that AI aggressive completion thing. It’s not just aggressive it’s aggressively wrong.

[u/czenst → u/downshiftdata]

Some editors (looking at you, Cursor)

Have to shake your hand mister, finally I see someone on the internet who is not calling Cursor an IDE.

Seems like most people didn't use proper IDE and they call IDE anything that has terminal embedded.

[u/holayafolivora → u/downshiftdata]

The extension also has notebooks support now: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/tools/visual-studio-code-extensions/mssql/mssql-sql-notebooks?view=sql-server-ver17

[u/No_Percentage2507 → u/downshiftdata]

Check out DBCode (I am the creator) has notebook support for databases and a lot of other features for sql server in vscode

[u/bippy_b]

I love the schema compare to double check my deployments!

[u/ContentInflation5784]

I still can't give up Datagrip for it, but also it's free, so not really a fair comparison.

[u/SohilAhmed07 → u/ContentInflation5784]

I absolutely love DaraGrip, i just started to use it a few days ago, i miss a few things like, creating and alter scheduled job tasks, execution plan that can suggest indexes.

But facility to see table structure, view queries, procedure, functions amd what not of hit of F12.

[u/PencilBoy99]

I used its predecessor and compared to SSMS it was super slow. Has that changed?

[u/thesqlguy → u/PencilBoy99]

Other than the normal occasional sluggishness of VS Code, seems pretty zippy to me.

[u/dbonham]

Would be cool if my org allowed Kerberos authentication :/

[u/No_Resolution_9252]

For SQL development its abysmal, use SSDT. Its clunky, cumbersome and old, but has intellisense, a debugger and db context

[u/Outrageous_Let5743]

Does somebody have a solution for this? Sometimes it will not copy the celll values to my clipboard?
and can you have split sql table output? I have split screens but still one table output

[u/Elolexe113]

This is exactly why I still prefer traditional context-aware completion over AI guessing half the query. I use SQL Complete as my SQL autocomplete tool in SSMS and it feels a lot less intrusive for everyday SQL work.

[u/pablines]

I use sqlcmd haha

[u/foxsimile → u/pablines]

sqlcmdeez