Microsoft is well aware of the fact that developers like to go online to find code samples to use in their projects. The problem with this method is that you have to rephrase your code needs into keywords that are acceptable by the search engine and when you find the desired solution you have to alter the code to match the variables you have set in your code. The Bing Code Search extension for Microsoft Visual Studio will now make this process easier by helping you search code snippets from the IDE itself. Once you engage the search option the Bing Code Search extension will search code samples from websites like MSDN, StackOverflow, Dotnetperls and CSharp411 and bring you the relevant results through Bing search engine.


The best part of the Bing code search extension is that the search results also contain the same variables that you have used in your project. This means that you no longer have to spend extra time altering variables before inserting the code. There are however some constraints. The extension cannot be installed on older versions of Visual Studio and for the meanwhile it can only search C# codes. The free extension was developed by the collaborative efforts of Bing, Visual Studio and Microsoft Research.

C# developers can go through the launch announcements made on #-Link-Snipped-# and #-Link-Snipped-# and then go through the video #-Link-Snipped-# before downloading the extension #-Link-Snipped-#. Once you have tried out the extension you can share you experiences with other users of the CrazyEngineers forum by creating a separate thread or post a comment below this thread.