Microsoft Launches Visual Studio Code, a Free Cross-Platform Code Editor • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft Launches Visual Studio Code, a Free Cross-Platform Code Editor

#451

Post by frik » Thu, Apr 30, 2015, 4:59 AM UTC

graycat wrote: post #404

krylon wrote: post #92

Ever since Nadella took over at Microsoft, such news items are becoming more and more frequent. Ten years ago, my first reaction at such a headline would have been to check my calendar if it's April 1st. Microsoft has come a long way from the company that everybody loved to hate. IMHO, they still have a long way ahead of them, but it's nice to see they seem to be serious about it. With Ballmer at the helm, I had the…

My take is that in the most central sense, what Nadella and Microsoft are doing with the code editor, .NET, their free IDE, etc. is following a standard, powerful, old script : If have something popular, e.g., .NET, then make it open and promote it as a standard . Then come out with enhancements every few months. Part of the script is what Ballmer once said in his uniquely understated way -- "Developers! Developers!…

> Net, thusly owning an open standard can be very valuable.

Microsoft would like that more developers are locked in to their dotNet languages. And they try to influence the development of the next Javascript version (ES6 & ES7) by showcasing C# syntax ideas in their TypeScript language which then influenced ES6 - which is heavily used in Sharepoint/Office-Server365, Visual Studio Code/Online, etc.

Don't get me wrong, Google, Adobe, Oracle, Mozilla, Opera, etc are trying to influence the Javascript/ES6&7 development - everyone with different business cases behind them. But Microsoft is well know for what the parent poster wrote, and several newer evil things like the locked EFI on new PCs (instead of the open BIOS) that make it hard to install anything but Windows are still there, more there https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9459890 .

Re: Microsoft Launches Visual Studio Code, a Free Cross-Platform Code Editor

#452

Post by noelherrick » Thu, Apr 30, 2015, 5:03 AM UTC

SXX wrote: post #423

notsony wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any reason not to use .NET now that it has been open-sourced? What's wrong with C# and F#?

At moment they only open-sourced core that only useful for running backends on non-Windows platforms which is useless on Mac as nobody run servers on it. Once their open source .Net would get most of Windows version features there may be some use for it with same drawbacks like you have with Java for example.

.NET Core is available on Linux, FreeBSD, and Mac, so you can use it for servers on Linux.[1] A lot of developers (such as myself) use Macs for their development machines, so it's very useful to have the same framework/runtime for both Mac and Linux.

[1] https://github.com/dotnet/coreclr#get-net-core

Re: Microsoft Launches Visual Studio Code, a Free Cross-Platform Code Editor

#453

Post by morpheous » Thu, Apr 30, 2015, 5:14 AM UTC

Never thought I'd say this ... but I'm beginning to like Microsoft again ... (not entirely sure this tiger can change it's stripes - but), all I can say is "Welcome to the the FOSS side!

Re: Microsoft Launches Visual Studio Code, a Free Cross-Platform Code Editor

#454

Post by scrabble » Thu, Apr 30, 2015, 5:15 AM UTC

mathrawka wrote: post #437

zaidf wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The layoffs come at a cost to the people who lost the jobs, not as much as a cost to Nadella or Microsoft. In fact, layoffs are usually a positive for the company. Of course, I'd also argue that in the longterm, layoffs are a positive for most of the people laid off.

Have you ever been laid off? Why was it a positive for you?

I have been laid off. In the end it was positive for me.

I left a job where I facilitated meetings to discuss major incidents and tracked action items and wrote long form reports. I decided to use this opportunity to instead move to a job I really loved where being laid off sounded far less likely.

I became a software developer. Finally took charge to do something professionally that I'd done for a couple decades as a hobbyist. Huge positive. Completely the right move. Never would have happened if I hadn't been laid off.

That said, I recognize it's not a positive for everyone in that position.

Re: Microsoft Launches Visual Studio Code, a Free Cross-Platform Code Editor

#455

Post by billrobertson42 » Thu, Apr 30, 2015, 5:16 AM UTC

Jare wrote: post #367

mmgutz wrote: post #157

I prefer it to atom already on OSX. * handles multiple files well. atom ends up being too many tabs with no quick way to get to them * MRU file switching * shows side by side default v user settings * launches must faster (which is strange since it is based on electron) * JS debbuger Can't wait to try the CoreCLR.

I just tried a 100MB C++ file; it opened in 2 seconds, and navigated very fast. No syntax highlighting, however a 20MB C++ file did receive syntax highlighting in the background (took around 30 seconds to reach the bottom), with navigation still 100% fast and responsive. Right now, this thing blows the Atom editor out of the water in terms of performance. For plugins and breadth of available functionality, Atom is mi…

Seriously? A 100MB C++ file?

Re: Microsoft Launches Visual Studio Code, a Free Cross-Platform Code Editor

#456

Post by billforsternz » Thu, Apr 30, 2015, 5:17 AM UTC

locusm wrote: post #450

billforsternz wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> .net which is just a renamed MFC I can't agree with this. MFC was a thin C++ encapsulation of the Windows API. It was a reasonably successful technology but was unloved largely because it was so thin - it didn't try to fix the ugly mess beneath and so left developers wrestling a large smelly octopus. .Net was more of a clean room attempt to provide developers with a clean, sane, consistent API built on a new virtua…

I originally went from Borland C++ Builder to .Net 1.1, the move from one IDE to the other felt very familiar, going from MFC to .Net was nothing like this.

Yes. Microsoft hired Anders Hejlsberg (Turbo Pascal and Delphi) to architect their C# / .Net development tools. So you observed a distinct family relationship there. But MFC is a different beast entirely.

Re: Microsoft Launches Visual Studio Code, a Free Cross-Platform Code Editor

#457

Post by snambi » Thu, Apr 30, 2015, 5:22 AM UTC

Microsoft is a shameless company. They used to attack Linux, GNU and GPL. Now, suddenly they want to be friends with Linux. Why? It has everything to do with money. Today windows is getting less relevant day by day. So, microsoft is trying to put their into Linux and Mac.

Re: Microsoft Launches Visual Studio Code, a Free Cross-Platform Code Editor

#458

Post by visarga » Thu, Apr 30, 2015, 5:23 AM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #279

gbl08ma wrote: post #133

The description says it's lightweight, but on my machine it uses over 200 MB of RAM with no files open, and appears to be a Chromium-based thing, much like Atom (as others pointed out, it's based on Electron). Meanwhile, Sublime Text is using less than 100 MB of RAM with dozens of files open, some of them quite big. Visual Studio tends to use less memory than this, too. If "the language services [Microsoft] built for…

Notepad uses very little memory; maybe you could use that instead.

Nah. Notepad doesn't even show line numbers. How hard would that have been to display the line and column?

Re: Microsoft Launches Visual Studio Code, a Free Cross-Platform Code Editor

#459

Post by snambi » Thu, Apr 30, 2015, 5:26 AM UTC

notsony wrote: post #325

rbanffy wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Developers* are sick of proprietary stacks And Microsoft will rescue them... Yeah, right...

Is there any reason not to use .NET now that it has been open-sourced? What's wrong with C# and F#?

Why would you trust a company like microsoft, when there are tons of true free/opensource software available?

Re: Microsoft Launches Visual Studio Code, a Free Cross-Platform Code Editor

#460

Post by brc » Thu, Apr 30, 2015, 5:31 AM UTC

ericras wrote: post #449

brc wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were you around 20 years ago? What they did was bundle internet connectivity in with the every windows PC. Sounds ridiculous even mentioning it, right? Back then you couldn't connect to the internet without installing third party tools, usually from an ISP on a disc. You had to install a browser, you couldn't embed hyperlinks in documents, there was no built-in way to get an email client..etcetcetc. The original memo…

But those tools were hard for laypeople to use in 1995. Sure, Windows now had a web browser and email program but you still needed an ISP and the email client was confusing to setup. Hell, their own Microsoft Network service was hard to figure out; one phone number to connect to the proprietary service and a different one for the Web (which never connected for me). It was much simpler for users to put in the AOL disk…

Your points may be true, but the point is they went from potentially letting AOL own all their customers to regaining the initiative. Prior to the strategy change, it would have been simple for AOL to maintain a steel grip on those customers and harvest all the value from them.

Just because Microsoft went on to dominate the desktop market and win the browser war doesn't mean it was inevitable.