Visual Studio Code is an open source multi-platform IDE for web development (especially JavaScript and Typescript) - enough reasons for me to check it out.

Installing

Download the latest Version from the Visual Studio Code website (I found the 64 bit version on the update page) and unzip it.

Then move it to the opt/ directory and create a symbolic link.

sudo mv VSCode-linux-x64 /opt/VSCode
sudo ln -s /opt/VSCode/Code /usr/local/bin/code

You are done; just run code from your terminal!

Creating a Desktop Icon

Create a desktop Icon by creating a VSCode.desktop file

sudo gedit /usr/share/applications/VSCode.desktop

with the following content

#!/usr/bin/env xdg-open

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Terminal=false
Exec=/opt/VSCode/Code
Name=VSCode
Icon=/opt/VSCode/resources/app/vso.png
Categories=Development

Now you can find VSCode in your start menu.

References