Why VS Code?

As mentioned, Bible translation software currently faces challenges with complex user interfaces and a fragmented ecosystem. Microsoft’s VS Code is an open-source text-editing software product already used by millions worldwide. VS Code offers robustness, scalability, and advanced functionalities like enterprise-level version control, intelligent continuous checking of files, and proven AI-native integration features. It also allows for high customization and localization, making it adaptable to any translator’s workflow. We plan to leverage VS Code as the “home” app and build core AI-powered copilot and assistant functionality within our version of VS Code. We will refer to this base app as “Codex: Open Components Infrastructure,” since it will house, among other integrations, components from the Open Components Ecosystem, making it tailored to the task of translation. This version will benefit from ongoing security and functionality updates made upstream, while removing telemetry and Microsoft branding, and incorporating core AI enhancements for translators.

In order to ensure maximum integration and support from various organizations in the domain of Bible Translation, we will leverage this Codex app as the infrastructure within which we can design, build, and test AI Copilot functionality and integration of existing resources. Codex, in turn, can be bundled with specific plugins and features to be packaged as a user-downloadable app.

VS Code is, at its heart, a world-class text editor app. While it has been used since 2015 for editing code projects—and it does this with unparalleled functionality—we see no principled reason why this powerful tool cannot be used for editing another kind of project, namely a translation project.

Read more about this rationale here and here.