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

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

#541
post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evaluating a user interface in a few minutes makes sense for things which will be used for a few minutes...and for journalists in need of sensational headlines under deadlines. An operating system is complex and used over a long period of time. Using Windows 8 meant I had to learn something. It took a day or two to become effective. A few months to become more effective than I had been under Windows 7, and a while be…

I don't need more than a few seconds to find that the contextual menu at the bottom of the screen was absurd. Being frustrated with it means I would try to avoid using it, go around that problem. The solution Microsoft advocated for desktop: use keyboard shortcuts! I do not dispute that keyboard shortcuts are faster than any mouse based UI. And I am sure that you became more proficient having to go around the Win 8 h…

Consumers are not the primary target for Windows. Never has been. Microsoft is primarily a B2B company. That's why they have long support cycles. That's why they make Excel. That's why they make Visual Studio...and languages and frameworks and SQL Server and Windows Server and Exchange etc etc.

Picking tools based on first impressions, is in my opinion, a suboptimal strategy. YMMV.

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

#543

Fun thing that nobody seems to mention is that a lot of "Visual Studio Code" is actually based on opensource. It's a atom shell app using omnisharp as server... Here some relative links where it's based upon: https://atom.io/ https://github.com/atom/electron http://www.omnisharp.net/ I think it's funny that MS uses 3rd party opensource for building a editor that supports Visual Basic (and other languages of course)..…

I think it's been mentioned a bit. Also it's actually all over the docs: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs

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

#544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have anything to back that up? Personally, I feel developing for Apple platforms has never been better. Companies are still, for the most part, launching on iOS first and I don't know who the developers you're talking about are, but there are a hell of a lot of great developers still in the platform: Panic, OmniGroup, etc. As for your comment on the 30% fee, that's industry standard and few serious developers…

Panic and OmniGroup were big 10 years ago. The fact that nobody has appeared on the scene, innovated and become a name that you or I can quote is quite telling. Where is the new blood? I personally know many long-time Mac developers who have sold their products to others to maintain, or have quietly slipped away and let sales slide. The 30% fee is not an industry standard that was debated and researched and rationali…

You are generalizing too much. Panic big 10 years ago? Coda came out in 2007, and it was pretty big for a while. So omnigroup is no longer a thing? They are alive and kicking. I agree that they both had faced problems with the Apple Sandboxing scheme, but I guess they'll overcome those issues (even by being out of the App Store).

What about Sketch, AgileBits, Alfred?

I know many long time devs who are still doing it and haven't sold their products to others to maintain... And I also happen know -lots- of new Mac/iOS devs.

Nothing to say about the 30%, it's just a pathetic argument, people have pointed it out already.

There is a reason to charge a $99 fee. There's also a reason to force a user to put a credit card to create an App Store Account, there's a reason to request a CC to create an Amazon account too. And $99 bucks is literally nothing, check MSDN and Visual Studio (https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/products/how-to-buy-vs.as...).

About 'Apple Centric Skill-set' not being transferable to other platforms? Sorry, but... are you f'ing kidding me?

If you learn -any- framework, made by anyone at all, in-depth (not just copy pasting code here and there), you'll get skills that are transferable to other development environments. I've learned a ton of C/C++ and even some Assembly by doing iOS, I've also dealt with several scripting languages in the process.

If you're a real Engineer, and you really learn and understand a framework (Apple's or not) it should contribute to your growth.

Cheers.

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

#545
post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Windows 10 reflects the strategic decisions embodied in Vista Hope you mean "embodied in Windows 8". I still remember the day I replaced my Vista PC with one running Windows 7, and wondering why the OS was booting so fast. I doubt "Vista" was strategic in any way, more incompetent management, but would agree "Windows 8" had strategic considerations behind it.

Vista broke with DOS and 16bit code. It elevated security. It required better hardware. It moved x64 toward the mainstream. The architecture of the OS was brought forward a decade. Tick. Windows 7 was a refinement of Vista. Tock. Windows 8 was a new interface and a step toward multi platform, e.g. ARM. Tick. Windows 10 is a full on multiplatform assault. Tock. Running a big company is nontrivial. Microsoft's manageme…

What you say is "Tick tock" was actually "flop, recover".

The VP of Vista fled to Amazon before it was publicly released.

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

#546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ballmer wasn't an idiot. Sorry, but yes, the person who said this ( http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-what-steve-ballmer-thou... ) was, in fact, an idiot. He should have had his walking papers from the board of directors by that Friday.

I'm not sure what they're getting at with the "Microsoft is building its own hardware, just like Apple." jab. Microsoft has had a hardware division since 1982!

But no Windows computers before Surface.

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

#547
post #262
post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... always ... waiting in the wings ... ship This sounds like you're speaking from inside experience. I would _love_ to hear more of this back story. Seriously, to anyone, write it up.

You just have to look at the amount of money they sunk into R&D in the last 15 years, which is public data. Nobody spends that sort of cash to simply develop simple iterative versions of established products (which Windows and Office have been ever since XP, really) or one random new gizmo (Kinect).

R&D gets favorable tax treatment. Maintaining an OS, whatever it costs, is R&D.

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

#548
post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I think is " obvious to those who are not unduly biased " is that he was cherrypicking the most extreme example (the restrictive GPL license, which is not used by most open source software[1]), and then trying to use that to spraypaint FUD over the (much) broader open source concept as a whole. "Open source is not available to commercial companies" is about as factually incorrect as any statement in the English…

That was 2001. There was no SAS loophole to exploit. If you desired to sell software, you had to ship it. In a box. The GPL was as viable for businesses back then as the AGPL is today.

In 2001 I sold a closed-source commercial product that ran on Linux and used LGPL librsries.

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

#549
post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I think is " obvious to those who are not unduly biased " is that he was cherrypicking the most extreme example (the restrictive GPL license, which is not used by most open source software[1]), and then trying to use that to spraypaint FUD over the (much) broader open source concept as a whole. "Open source is not available to commercial companies" is about as factually incorrect as any statement in the English…

That was 2001. There was no SAS loophole to exploit. If you desired to sell software, you had to ship it. In a box. The GPL was as viable for businesses back then as the AGPL is today.

In 2001 I sold a closed-source commercial product that ran on Linux and used LGPL librsries.

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

#550
post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some HN'ers may not recall Microsoft's "sleeping giant awakes" moment with the Internet in the 90's. Speaking of tidal waves, hang on to your surfboards, it's going to be big and fast. http://www.lettersofnote.com/2011/07/internet-tidal-wave.htm...

It is now just a month shy of 20 years since that letter was written. And what did Microsoft do? They bought a browser and gave it away for free, cutting off Netscape at the knees, til the company folded and become the Mozilla Foundation. They poured billions and billions of dollars into online initiatives from the Microsoft Network to Bing, including buying dozens and dozens of companies. None of those were big succ…

Mozilla going nonprofit opem source was the best thing that happened to it.
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