Much of the power of sophisticated IDEs comes from their ability to parse a program into an abstract syntax tree (AST) and then use that AST for program analysis and manipulation. This supports features such as autocomplete, finding callers and refactoring. Language servers pull this capability into a process that allows any text editor to access an API to work with the AST. Microsoft has led the creation of the Language Server Protocol (LSP), harvested from their OmniSharp and TypeScript Server projects.Any editor that uses this protocol can work with any language that has an LSP-compliant server. This means we can keep using our favorite editors without forgoing the rich text editing modes of many languages — much to the delight of our Emacs addicts.
Much of the power of sophisticated IDEs comes from their ability to parse a program into an abstract syntax tree (AST) and then use that AST for program analysis and manipulation. This supports features such as autocomplete, finding callers and refactoring. Language servers pull this capability into a process that allows any text editor to access an API to work with the AST. Microsoft has led the creation of the Language Server Protocol (LSP), harvested from their OmniSharp and TypeScript Server projects.Any editor that uses this protocol can work with any language that has an LSP-compliant server. This means we can keep using our favorite editors without forgoing the rich text editing modes of many languages — much to the delight of our Emacs addicts.
