Issue #161 (MCP Explained)05/21/25
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Let's call this issue of the newsletter the MCP issue. MCP is the latest buzzword in AI-powered coding, and I hope the resources provided here will shed some light on the topic for those who have heard the term but maybe don't quite understand what it's all about.
It's still pretty new to me, so I'm not claiming to be an expert, but I'll point you to some stuff I found this week so you can do some digging into it.
The main resource I'll direct you to is the YouTube video Model Context Protocol (MCP), clearly explained (why it matters) by Greg Isenberg. His channel isn't strictly a coding channel but is more focused on growing a startup with modern tech.
In the 20-minute video, Greg is joined by Ras Mic, a full-stack engineer, who breaks down what MCP is all about in what you should find to be a fairly down-to-earth explanation. Greg's audience isn't mainly coders so although Ras is a developer, the goal here is to provide a simple but comprehensive guide.
In addition to that, the articles section below includes something from the VS Code blog on adding MCP in VS Code. And finally, the "Best of the Rest" section includes an introductory website covering everything you need to know to get started with MCP.
Now on to this week's hand-picked links!
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VS Code Tools
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VS Code AI Tools Explorer — A searchable, taggable website comparing AI tools for VS Code that aims to provide developers with a comprehensive resource to discover and compare various AI-powered extensions and forks for VS Code.
Eyecons — An advanced VS Code icon theme with adaptive icon colors that match the editor’s color theme. You can test run different popular themes directly on the page.
The Morning Paper for Tech — Want a byte-sized version of Hacker News that takes just a few minutes to read? Try TLDR's free daily newsletter. It covers the most interesting tech, startup, and programming stories in just 5 minutes. No sports and no politics. Sponsor
GitHub Copilot Chat — Most of you probably have this extension installed, but this is the companion extension that gets installed along with GitHub Copilot that provides conversational AI assistance in addition to inline suggestions.
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VS Code Theme of the Week
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Theme — A generically named but quite popular VS Code theme specifically designed for those who like to code at night. It's a fairly run-of-the-mill choice of colors, which you might like since it's not too crazy looking.
It includes 3 variations called Mix, Flat, and Darker. The one shown above is the default theme. The other 3 are slight variations for italics, flat UI colors, and a darker background.
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VS Code Articles & Videos
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Beyond the Tools, Adding MCP in VS Code — From the VS Code blog, if you're unfamiliar with the details surrounding MCP or "Model Context Protocol", this is a good intro with further resources and how it ties into VS Code.
Why You Should Boycott VS Code — Not a new position, but a controversial take that many in the comments disagree with. Nonetheless, there are some valid points made about some of the limitations surrounding VS Code as "open source".
Brain Food, Delivered Daily — Every day Refind analyzes thousands of articles and sends you only the best, tailored to your interests. Loved by 527,190 curious minds. Sponsor
Configuring VS Code for Swift Development — If you're relatively new to Swift development, this might be a good initial guide for getting started with Swift with VS Code, covering extension setup, language features, running tasks, debugging, and more.
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Best of the Rest
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Model Context Protocol — This website (linked in the aforementioned VS Code blog article) provides an introduction to MCP, explains its benefits, and shows how to get started using the technology.
Leo — A fully-featured IDE, under development for more than 20 years, with many features inspired by Emacs, with features like a data manager and personal information manager, a powerful scripting environment, and more.
Web Tools Weekly — A weekly newsletter featuring tools, plugins, scripts and other useful stuff for front-end developers, full-stack developers, app developers, mobile developers, and more. Sponsor
Free Pilot for Vim/Neovim — A fast, lightweight, and configurable AI completion plugin for Vim and Neovim that works with both local and cloud models, to enable GitHub Copilot-like functionality for free or at a fraction of the cost.
If you have any link suggestions, including a tool, article, or other resource related to VS Code or another IDE, you can hit reply, send it via DM on X, or via chat on Bluesky.
That's it for this issue.
Happy VS Coding!
Louis
VSCode.Email
@LouisLazaris
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