Kite AI-Powered Code Completion Tool Adds C#, TypeScript, More -- Visual Studio Magazine

Kite AI-Powered Code Completion Tool Adds C#, TypeScript, More

By David Ramel
10/28/2020

Kite, which provides a code completion tool powered by artificial intelligence (AI), has expanded the number of programming languages that it supports in IDEs and code editors like Visual Studio Code.

And on that list are Microsoft's own languages, C# and TypeScript, making the tool more attractive to Microsoft-centric coders.

Along with the super popular VS Code, Kite supports all the JetBrains IDES -- PyCharm, IntelliJ, Goland, Android Studio, Webstorm, CLion, PHP Storm, RubyMine, Rider and AppCode -- along with JupyterLab, Vim, Sublime, Atom and Spyder.

**[Click on image for larger view.]** Kite Completing Java Code *(source: Kite).*

Programming languages supported by Kite include Java, Kotlin, Scala, Python, C/C++, Objective-C, C#, Golang, JavaScript, TypeScript, HTML/CSS and Less. The company has especially focused on Python, which is growing in popularity itself and for which the VS Code dev team has gone all in. Kite added JavaScript support in May.

"Kite's AI-powered completions predict what you're going to type next," the company said. "How is this useful? It saves you typing when you already know what you're going to type. It also saves you documentation lookups when you can't remember the name of an API or how to use it."

While the tool is free, a paid enterprise server-powered offering is also available, along with a Python Pro option. The free option provides:

Line-of-code completions for 12 languages
Python function signatures as you type
Python documentation

The tool can be downloaded here.

While other code-completion tools are available for VS Code, Kite earlier this year claimed its tooling differentiates itself with characteristics such as:

Complete multiple lines of code at a time
Provide completions when editors like VS Code cannot understand the code

[Click on image for larger view.] Kite Claims More Code Completions than VS Code Alone (source: Kite).
Show completions in more situations, for example after a space
Work alongside VS Code's and other editors' code-completion tools

"The JavaScript ecosystem continually invents new frameworks and design patterns," said the company's Daniel Hung in May in announcing JavaScript support. "These inventions make it a vibrant place to be, but it also creates the need to learn an ever-changing set of code patterns and APIs."

About the Author

David Ramel is an editor and writer at Converge 360.

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