Getting Started

Sandboxes on Next Tech have (very early!) Alpha support for what we are calling Next Code, which is based on Visual Studio Code (VS Code). This allows you to run what is essentially VS Code under the hood directly in your browser without downloading anything!
To get started, head over to the sandbox launchpad. Once you're there, pick the language you'd like to use (this guide uses Go), then click the Next Code (Alpha) interface, as shown below:
Selecting the Next Code interface.
You'll be shown a dialog that contains an explanation of the current limitations of this feature (also detailed at the end of this page). Just click the Sounds fun, let's go! button and your sandbox will load with the Next Code interface:
Next Code running online, in your browser.
You can click the square in the top right corner of the Next Code interface to make Next Code full screen:
Full screen Next Code.
To get started, you can click File, then New File:
Next Code File dropdown.
(note that the Ctrl+N will not work in the browser)
Save your file as main.go, then put this code in it:
package main
​
import "fmt"
​
func main() {
​
    var a [5]int
    fmt.Println("emp:", a)
​
    a[4] = 100
    fmt.Println("set:", a)
    fmt.Println("get:", a[4])
​
    fmt.Println("len:", len(a))
​
    b := [5]int{1, 2, 3, 4, 5}
​
    fmt.Println("dcl:", b)
​
    var twoD [2][3]int
    for i := 0; i < 2; i++ {
        for j := 0; j < 3; j++ {
            twoD[i][j] = i + j
        }
    }
    fmt.Println("2d: ", twoD)
}
Now, head over to the extensions marketplace and install the Go extension:
Installing an extension in Next Code.
You may need to press Ctrl+Shift+P, type "reload", then select Developer: Reload Window to get things working correctly.
You'll be prompted in the bottom right to install several packages. Go for it!
You can try typing b in the code editor to see the intelligent autocomplete kicking in. Here, it sees that b is actually an array with 5 ints in it:
Next Code in the cloud with intelligent autocomplete (IntelliSense).
You can run code using the software normally installed in your sandbox. To run this file, click Terminal, then New Terminal:
Launching a new terminal in Next Code.
Then you can use the already installed go program from your sandbox:
Running a Go program in Next Code in your browser.
And there you have it! You've just used what is essentially VS Code in the cloud to write a Go program.
Next up we'll cover the current features in Next Code, where to find the documentation, the current limitations, and information on where you can provide feedback to help shape the development of this feature.
Last modified 3yr ago