Microsoft is discontinuing Visual Studio for Mac after major overhaul(9to5mac.com)
9to5mac.com
Microsoft is discontinuing Visual Studio for Mac after major overhaul
https://9to5mac.com/2023/08/30/microsoft-visual-studio-mac-discontinued/
114 comments
> They are crippling the app development story for .NET on Mac
Honestly how many .NET developers ever used a Mac as their work machine? I have to think it's a tiny percentage.
Honestly how many .NET developers ever used a Mac as their work machine? I have to think it's a tiny percentage.
A good 95% of the mobile game devs I know who use Macs use Unity. Unity code is done pretty much exclusively with C#.
100% of those people use Jetbrains Rider and/or VScode. One used to use Visual Studio, but moved to Rider a good year ago.
C#/.NET today is what Java wanted to be, it's an actually good and comfortable modern-ish language that actually works on multiple platforms.
100% of those people use Jetbrains Rider and/or VScode. One used to use Visual Studio, but moved to Rider a good year ago.
C#/.NET today is what Java wanted to be, it's an actually good and comfortable modern-ish language that actually works on multiple platforms.
The problem, and I say this being 22 years deep in it, is that .NET was never cool.
That seems unimportant, but being objectively the best thing going doesn’t build a community or any word-of-mouth around your product.
I’d love to think we’d see a thriving Nuget scene on the order of npm or gem, but if it was going to happen it would’ve happened by now.
That seems unimportant, but being objectively the best thing going doesn’t build a community or any word-of-mouth around your product.
I’d love to think we’d see a thriving Nuget scene on the order of npm or gem, but if it was going to happen it would’ve happened by now.
Yeah, it took a LONG time for .NET and C# to get out of the "Micro$oft Bad" -reputation.
But having done a good 15 years of Enterprise Java professionally and having moved to C# for the last half decade, there isn't enough money in my country's IT salaries for me to go back to Java. It's not just the language, it's the whole ecosystem that's icky compared to C#/.NET.
But having done a good 15 years of Enterprise Java professionally and having moved to C# for the last half decade, there isn't enough money in my country's IT salaries for me to go back to Java. It's not just the language, it's the whole ecosystem that's icky compared to C#/.NET.
Solution: cajole people from the community into effectively rebranding themselves into something sexier through a somewhat hostile fork run by competent people who "get it" and are not (currently) affiliated with MS. People love throwing support behind the rebels.
Make sure to rebrand the whole thing, though. References to "C#" and ".NET" shouldn't appear anywhere except on the project's /about/history page.
Make sure to rebrand the whole thing, though. References to "C#" and ".NET" shouldn't appear anywhere except on the project's /about/history page.
Modern java is a fairly good language. If you don't like it, can always opt into scala, kotlin, or clojure. I don't understand what you mean by Java not working on multiple platforms. If you like c#/.net that's fine but why try to put down Java which has been cross platform for a long time?
Cross platform is less and less important nowadays. When was the last time your phone ran a Java application natively? As in you had a legit JVM on your phone?
Everything is cross-compiled or cross-translated to something else. I write C# for Unity and it translates it to something that'll run on iOS, which definitely doesn't have the CLR natively in it.
Everything is cross-compiled or cross-translated to something else. I write C# for Unity and it translates it to something that'll run on iOS, which definitely doesn't have the CLR natively in it.
C#/.NET is still far away from where Java has been, in cross platform support (almost every CPU and OS has some kind of JVM implementation), and being a bit better in handling value types and going the C++ way in adding features isn't the way many of us see it as better.
Unity used to be Mac only for years (around 2008) while still being based on .net / Mono.
I can't stand MacOS and neither could any of the other devs at the place I was working, so we had this funky system where we coded in VS, using the MS .net libs, but would deploy against Unity on Mac with Mono to run on iPhone 3gs. Those were strange times :)
I can't stand MacOS and neither could any of the other devs at the place I was working, so we had this funky system where we coded in VS, using the MS .net libs, but would deploy against Unity on Mac with Mono to run on iPhone 3gs. Those were strange times :)
For old school .NET Framework, not so much.
For .NET 5+… probably more than you think.
For .NET 5+… probably more than you think.
As a long term python dev I was starting to warm up to c# and considering it for some upcoming projects… even to the point of evaluating and considering paying for commercial licenses for third part c# libraries to fit the projects…
But this rug pull deeply shakes my faith in .Net as a cross platform development ecosystem…
I’ve done a complete 180 on my entire enthusiasm for .Net here… I know the underlying tools will continue… but if they don’t give enough of a shit to maintain their IDE (which for the .Net world is absolutely crucial… I cannot emphasise this enough… .Net development requires an IDE to maintain your sanity…) well…
This is basically step one in a slow abandonment of non Windows platforms… and everyone who lives on those non Windows platforms… be they Linux of MacOS… we know it spells doom.
But this rug pull deeply shakes my faith in .Net as a cross platform development ecosystem…
I’ve done a complete 180 on my entire enthusiasm for .Net here… I know the underlying tools will continue… but if they don’t give enough of a shit to maintain their IDE (which for the .Net world is absolutely crucial… I cannot emphasise this enough… .Net development requires an IDE to maintain your sanity…) well…
This is basically step one in a slow abandonment of non Windows platforms… and everyone who lives on those non Windows platforms… be they Linux of MacOS… we know it spells doom.
As much as I worry that MS’ strategy for cross platform mobile/GUI development is… “unclear”, I am 100% all in on .NET for cross-platform web/console apps.
Rider on macOS is a really first class IDE, and VS Code is getting better.
But regardless of the IDE, cross platform compilation and execution has come a long way. I build on Mac, deploy to Windows and Linux, everything works flawlessly and overall .NET development outside of Windows has become a very smooth and enjoyable experience. It’s fast too.
The .NET ecosystem largely feels quite healthy. I personally just think there have been some missteps with MAUI and the retiring of anything Xamarin related - but I would guess this affects a minority of .NET developers.
So if you’re on the fence… I would still recommend giving it try, regardless of this announcement!
Rider on macOS is a really first class IDE, and VS Code is getting better.
But regardless of the IDE, cross platform compilation and execution has come a long way. I build on Mac, deploy to Windows and Linux, everything works flawlessly and overall .NET development outside of Windows has become a very smooth and enjoyable experience. It’s fast too.
The .NET ecosystem largely feels quite healthy. I personally just think there have been some missteps with MAUI and the retiring of anything Xamarin related - but I would guess this affects a minority of .NET developers.
So if you’re on the fence… I would still recommend giving it try, regardless of this announcement!
Yeah, I agree with this take. For web and console apps, C#/dotnet is a great choice and should continue to be. Blazor, I think, is also fine (for some use cases, it's situational) and I think it's at the point it'll achieve liftoff.
I've been playing around with MAUI the past few months and it... isn't great. Desktop feels like (and honestly, kinda is) an afterthought, and the documentation is sparse. I spent several hours fighting with a couple of native layout controls trying to get them to work, before giving up and implementing everything I wanted to do in half an hour in a web view.
I've been playing around with MAUI the past few months and it... isn't great. Desktop feels like (and honestly, kinda is) an afterthought, and the documentation is sparse. I spent several hours fighting with a couple of native layout controls trying to get them to work, before giving up and implementing everything I wanted to do in half an hour in a web view.
It seems more like they want to concentrate their effort on the C# Dev Kit for VS Code. Whether that proves to be the correct choice remains to be seen, but it seems promising even though it's still early.
Since it understands Visual Studio solutions instead of just working at the project level, and has extra things like the test explorer, VSCode essentially _is_ an IDE. I'm sure people will complain, but people _always_ complain about change. I think this one has a good chance of working out for the better, even if the C# isn't as good yet. Regardless, it's probably a better investment for MS than continuing to pile features atop the tired old bones of MonoDevelop in the form of VS for Mac.
Since it understands Visual Studio solutions instead of just working at the project level, and has extra things like the test explorer, VSCode essentially _is_ an IDE. I'm sure people will complain, but people _always_ complain about change. I think this one has a good chance of working out for the better, even if the C# isn't as good yet. Regardless, it's probably a better investment for MS than continuing to pile features atop the tired old bones of MonoDevelop in the form of VS for Mac.
You don’t need Visual Studio for Mac to use C# and .Net. Visual Studio Code provides a pretty good cross platform experience, same for Rider (if you prefer IDEs). VS for Mac has always been a subpar tool compared to VS for Windows, and was competing with vscode. I’m surprised they maintained it for that long, it makes sense they stop now that vscode caught up, that’s where they will invest their energy moving forward. VS for Mac was its own codebase, I believe a fork of Monodevelop renamed Xamarin Studio, then renamed VS for Mac after Xamarin acquisition (I’m saying this from memory, I may be misremembering a few things).
The language is still interesting to explore, and .net is incredibly reliable and stable and will stay cross platform, it’s a really good platform to develop for IMHO.
The language is still interesting to explore, and .net is incredibly reliable and stable and will stay cross platform, it’s a really good platform to develop for IMHO.
I don’t know what kind of ‘rug pull’ you think this is. Microsoft has built a lot of good tools for cross platform (e.g., VS Code), and this seems like more of a culling the herd type of move.
Visual Studio on Mac was mostly inherited and never was as good as Visual Studio (Windows). I was enthusiastic when they released it, but it didn’t live up to standards. There are better options out there.
Visual Studio on Mac was mostly inherited and never was as good as Visual Studio (Windows). I was enthusiastic when they released it, but it didn’t live up to standards. There are better options out there.
The best tool for .NET cross platform development is a packaged browser using JavaScript, whereas Java IDEs are written in Java.
What a great way to promote .NET capabilities outside Windows.
What a great way to promote .NET capabilities outside Windows.
Yeah, I agree. I see a ton of Rider screenshots on projects, videos, presentation slides these days and I imagine those are almost all Mac users.
we are kotlin and .net shop with 90% macs. people use rider.
Not sure about the percentage, but I am one if those.
With .Net Core 5+ and Rider, there's not much against Macs for Web Dev. Most things speak for it, especially performance (compared to Win).
With .Net Core 5+ and Rider, there's not much against Macs for Web Dev. Most things speak for it, especially performance (compared to Win).
I do. The company I work for is heavily invested in the Microsoft ecosystem, so a lot of our services are .NET. When I came back here after leaving for a bit I told them it was a dealbreaker that I get a Mac or Linux instead of Windows, so I have a Mac now. I use Visual Studio for Mac pretty regularly. Now I will likely be forced to use the absolute disaster of a VM that the company provides us with (Microsoft-supplied, of course).
I'm one of that tiny percentage, but all of my development is done by remoting into a cloud Windows VM.
I tried directly coding on the Mac when I first got it, but quickly gave up on that. (I hate Rider, which seems to put me in minority as far as most .Net devs go.)
I tried directly coding on the Mac when I first got it, but quickly gave up on that. (I hate Rider, which seems to put me in minority as far as most .Net devs go.)
What sort of work are you doing that made you give up on C# on mac? Backend or games?
I haven't really tried to write serious C# code on macOS, but I did write some CLI tools, which was not bad. VSCode debugging works great too.
Obviously .NET is not supported as well as it should anywhere except Windows, but it seems to be getting better.
I haven't really tried to write serious C# code on macOS, but I did write some CLI tools, which was not bad. VSCode debugging works great too.
Obviously .NET is not supported as well as it should anywhere except Windows, but it seems to be getting better.
Backend with a lot of existing code that's still in .Net Framework using tech like WCF and Windows Services.
I could get away with doing dev directly on the Mac if I was _only_ working in .Net Core on our newer applications and if I was willing to use Rider. Neither of which are true.
I could get away with doing dev directly on the Mac if I was _only_ working in .Net Core on our newer applications and if I was willing to use Rider. Neither of which are true.
Don't know, but I have been using net core / vs code and a Mac since 2019 and switched to the M1 when it came out for the MacBook Pros. I was using VS inside a VM before that since probably 2009 or so.
> Honestly how many .NET developers ever used a Mac as their work machine? I have to think it's a tiny percentage.
I’m not sure this is the best time to look at past performance to predict future developments. Microsoft is actively working on WinUI 3, and Avalonia UI is also dragging WPF to multiple platforms. This comes in a time when GUI programming on Mac is a hot mess. If anything, I expect .NET development on Mac to soar.
I’m not sure this is the best time to look at past performance to predict future developments. Microsoft is actively working on WinUI 3, and Avalonia UI is also dragging WPF to multiple platforms. This comes in a time when GUI programming on Mac is a hot mess. If anything, I expect .NET development on Mac to soar.
> GUI programming on Mac is a hot mess
Care to elaborate?
Care to elaborate?
Everyone in our team of 5 does..
With JetBrains Rider ist a great experience
With JetBrains Rider ist a great experience
Our entire engineering team (50+) are on Mac + .Net
A lot! Last company I worked for (40B+ valuation) every developer used a Mac laptop and we were a .net shop. I imagine this is the same at many other companies using .net.
all the ones using it for ios development. i don't know how many did, but this really sucks for those of us that have been using xamarin / .net for ios
I’ve only seen Mac users doing C# with vscode, these days omnisharp (or the new C# dev kit? I’m not familiar with this one) is fairly good (though not VS good IMHO).
MS care less and less for this and probably already internally writing off MAUI as a fools errand.
New Teams is a React web app. New Outlook? Yeah, web. Gadgets in Windows 11? Web too. New Windows Copilot (Cortana successor)? Web…
Just look at what they do rather than say and the direction is clear.
The only true focus (cross platform or not) seems to be .NET itself, TypeScript and web related tech like Blazor or helpers like Windows UI components for React.
WPF is maintenance mode, WinForms too, MAUI in two years, WinUI also seeing low or no use among standalone enterprise products from Microsoft.
New Teams is a React web app. New Outlook? Yeah, web. Gadgets in Windows 11? Web too. New Windows Copilot (Cortana successor)? Web…
Just look at what they do rather than say and the direction is clear.
The only true focus (cross platform or not) seems to be .NET itself, TypeScript and web related tech like Blazor or helpers like Windows UI components for React.
WPF is maintenance mode, WinForms too, MAUI in two years, WinUI also seeing low or no use among standalone enterprise products from Microsoft.
> They are crippling the app development story for .NET on Mac now IMHO, and it wasn’t great to start with.
I had the misfortune of installing and using Visual Studio for Mac last year, and it was bad. The primary disservice that Microsoft did with that app was naming it Visual Studio, which places users expectations on par with the real visual studio line of products, which are feature complete and world class. To me Visual Studio for Mac felt half baked and missing features that were already made available to visual studio code through extension.
As Visual Studio Code is still available and it’s support for C# has been continuously improving, I’m confident no one will miss it.
I had the misfortune of installing and using Visual Studio for Mac last year, and it was bad. The primary disservice that Microsoft did with that app was naming it Visual Studio, which places users expectations on par with the real visual studio line of products, which are feature complete and world class. To me Visual Studio for Mac felt half baked and missing features that were already made available to visual studio code through extension.
As Visual Studio Code is still available and it’s support for C# has been continuously improving, I’m confident no one will miss it.
> Hmm that sounds appealing /s
I mean, it's better than 'buy a mac and pay us $100/year'.
I mean, it's better than 'buy a mac and pay us $100/year'.
Enjoying daily driving VS Code for C# a lot, it's really smooth and with LSP, the symbol editing and navigation speed is really high, and it is about 2x ligher on memory and battery than Rider (Rider is good, just not something I use predominantly).
No one that’s serious about Mac/iOS apps should pick .NET as their cross platform framework.
Stick with React Native or maybe Flutter
Stick with React Native or maybe Flutter
Not all software has a GUI. I've recently started working on a cross platform command line application using .NET 7 and am honestly impressed with the experience.
How are .Net startup times for your tool, and how do you package your tool?
I like modern C# a lot, but would not pick .Net for a CLI tool due to the slow startup times I experienced compared to rust or go. And packaging the runtime has always felt a bit too annoying compared to a native compilation. I would be interested to learn if you had a good experience, I haven’t dealt with .Net CLI apps since a while, I’m sure things improved.
I like modern C# a lot, but would not pick .Net for a CLI tool due to the slow startup times I experienced compared to rust or go. And packaging the runtime has always felt a bit too annoying compared to a native compilation. I would be interested to learn if you had a good experience, I haven’t dealt with .Net CLI apps since a while, I’m sure things improved.
There's no startup time overhead now for my stuff as all my web servers, apis, and command line tooling (.Net CLI apps) are built (by the standard dotnet tooling) into cross-platform stand-alone binaries.
They are native code and generally between around 11MB and 20MB depending upon what they do.
They are native code and generally between around 11MB and 20MB depending upon what they do.
If your memory of start up times is based on .NET Framework or Mono, then things have come a very long way since .NET Core onwards.
I’ve never experienced any startup time delays at all with recent .NET development, even when running on underpowered cloud VMs. Nothing that would have any tangible real world effect anyway.
There are also lots of optimisations available now and much more work is being done to reduce binary sizes, AOT etc
I’ve never experienced any startup time delays at all with recent .NET development, even when running on underpowered cloud VMs. Nothing that would have any tangible real world effect anyway.
There are also lots of optimisations available now and much more work is being done to reduce binary sizes, AOT etc
Aren't there plenty of tools to compile down to native? I'm always seeing stuff on the Microsoft blogs about options for doing this which I've not looked at.
I didn’t follow the last year, from what I remember the AOT was still fairly experimental?
Edit: I read the docs, seems to be available with .net 8 if I understand correctly
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/deploying/nati...
Edit: I read the docs, seems to be available with .net 8 if I understand correctly
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/deploying/nati...
I imagine it is mostly back end devs using Macs though.
^ someone who has never used .net for Mac/iOS.
Very few have - that’s the issue
I've enjoyed using VS Code on Mac for editing C#. I haven't really missed anything from full-blown Visual Studio.
This new (preview) official "C# Dev Kit" VS Code plugin seems relevant, should help close the gap: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-dotne...
But also Rider is awesome, and I recommend it to everyone.
But also Rider is awesome, and I recommend it to everyone.
VS Code has a MAUI extension in Preview: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/visualstudio/announcing-the-d...
That extension is an interesting return to official Linux cross-platform support (since MonoDevelop was left as a community effort).
I had wondered if a focus on cross-platform efforts in VS Code might spell the death of VS for Mac, but I hadn't expected them to announce it before the MAUI extension and C# Dev Kit extension were both out of Preview.
That said, even though I try to avoid Preview extensions in main profiles, I've heard good things about those extensions from those that don't mind as much.
That extension is an interesting return to official Linux cross-platform support (since MonoDevelop was left as a community effort).
I had wondered if a focus on cross-platform efforts in VS Code might spell the death of VS for Mac, but I hadn't expected them to announce it before the MAUI extension and C# Dev Kit extension were both out of Preview.
That said, even though I try to avoid Preview extensions in main profiles, I've heard good things about those extensions from those that don't mind as much.
It’s not a mistake. VSCode will absolutely catch up if it hasn’t already.
Visual Studio for Mac (Xamarin) was already a really niche product with limited appeal. Microsoft bought the company to bring more of the .NET ecosystem under its umbrella. The problem is, the .NET ecosystem is increasingly irrelevant.
Why have yet another IDE when all the .NET specific stuff can live in an extension? VSCode is the most popular editor on the planet and it deserves that status.
I don’t think Microsoft is all that concerned about the survival of .NET. Cloud computing is where the money is. The new business model is that developers write the apps however they want and deploy to Azure.
Visual Studio for Mac (Xamarin) was already a really niche product with limited appeal. Microsoft bought the company to bring more of the .NET ecosystem under its umbrella. The problem is, the .NET ecosystem is increasingly irrelevant.
Why have yet another IDE when all the .NET specific stuff can live in an extension? VSCode is the most popular editor on the planet and it deserves that status.
I don’t think Microsoft is all that concerned about the survival of .NET. Cloud computing is where the money is. The new business model is that developers write the apps however they want and deploy to Azure.
I use VS Code on a mac for C# development. I recently discovered this extension and it works really well out of the box.
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-dotne...
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-dotne...
The Microsoft announcement is here: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/visualstudio/visual-studio-fo...
Previous HN submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37325427
Visual Studio 2022 announcement: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/visualstudio/visual-studio-20...
Previous HN submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37325427
Visual Studio 2022 announcement: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/visualstudio/visual-studio-20...
Was it even popular? I think Rider is the king on Linux and Mac for .NET development (even quite popular on Windows machines)
It’s the best option for Unity development, if you don’t want to pay. (There are a lot of people in this category—students who want to get into game development.)
I'm a paid user of Rider, but mostly use VS Mac as it's faster, cleaner, and more intuitive. Plus (and despite also being a paid user of Goland too) there's something about the JetBrains IDE range's font rendering I've never really liked; it seems somehow not crisp enough. Hard to put into words, though their new UI style is much improved.
As long as VS Mac supports your project types over the last year and a half it has come on hugely. I've no problem switching to VS Code, and I saw this coming a while back, but it's a shame.
I also use Visual Studio on Windows extensively. Whilst it does much more than VS Mac it's uglier and far less reliable, both of which matter to me in quality of life ways.
As long as VS Mac supports your project types over the last year and a half it has come on hugely. I've no problem switching to VS Code, and I saw this coming a while back, but it's a shame.
I also use Visual Studio on Windows extensively. Whilst it does much more than VS Mac it's uglier and far less reliable, both of which matter to me in quality of life ways.
I was expecting this since the day it went on the market. Total dead end.
The 20-odd years I've been in the .Net ecosystem has been a complete schizophrenic rollercoaster. Glad I'm not dealing with it now.
On a positive note I paid my mortgage off rewriting Silverlight apps in other things, getting rid of workflow foundation and replacing abandoned things like AppFabric and various ORM implementations.
The 20-odd years I've been in the .Net ecosystem has been a complete schizophrenic rollercoaster. Glad I'm not dealing with it now.
On a positive note I paid my mortgage off rewriting Silverlight apps in other things, getting rid of workflow foundation and replacing abandoned things like AppFabric and various ORM implementations.
I really like Visual Studio. I work lately mostly on mac and linux though, and mostly in C and C++. Visual Studio on Mac ended up being regretware for me, as I don't do much in .NET. (mostly, just never needed to! No objections to the language at all, it just never fit what I needed)
VSCode still works ... ok. It has a very hard time with refactored code though, so I've just gone back to my traditions and it's emacs everywhere once more. Except windows - where I'll still use Visual Studio if I can. Honestly, VSCode is probably great for 80%-90% of developers.
Thanks to the messages here though, I'm going to look to see if Rider could work ... maybe. ;)
VSCode still works ... ok. It has a very hard time with refactored code though, so I've just gone back to my traditions and it's emacs everywhere once more. Except windows - where I'll still use Visual Studio if I can. Honestly, VSCode is probably great for 80%-90% of developers.
Thanks to the messages here though, I'm going to look to see if Rider could work ... maybe. ;)
I am disappointed about this discontinuation. Vs for Mac was never great though it had two things that code does not have
1. Solution load. This will be in the C# DevKit though it’s in preview
2. Xamarin support. This will now be in the Maui extension for code.
The timing of this is in line with getting the bad news out of the way before November however it’s still not great since the code extensions are in preview. Microsoft has committed to supporting VS for Mac for 1 year to fill the gap. Presumably the extensions will be GA by then.
1. Solution load. This will be in the C# DevKit though it’s in preview
2. Xamarin support. This will now be in the Maui extension for code.
The timing of this is in line with getting the bad news out of the way before November however it’s still not great since the code extensions are in preview. Microsoft has committed to supporting VS for Mac for 1 year to fill the gap. Presumably the extensions will be GA by then.
Not to be confused with VSCode :)
Yeah for a second, I thought it was VS Code for Mac being discontinued and was surprised - but this is Visual Studio which is really only used for C# and .NET development. Looks like VS Code is safe :)
Thank you that makes so much more sense. This was really confusing; their product naming is not helpful.
Was just talking about this on the "Why did Python win?" thread, but I think there's just a fundamental divide between IDE people and text editor people. Text editor people buy Macs so they can use a POSIX command line with a nice windowed UI. They use VS Code or maybe vim. IDE people want full VS (or IntelliJ) and they both run better on less expensive Windows machines. I think the target demos for OSX and Visual Studio just don't overlap enough.
> IDE people want full VS (or IntelliJ) and they both run better on less expensive Windows machines.
No Windows machine comes even close to the battery lifetime and general performance of an M2 series Mac.
No Windows machine comes even close to the battery lifetime and general performance of an M2 series Mac.
I'm on an M1 Mac and even with that iteration you're totally right. Especially given for that battery life you usually still great performance and a silent machine.
But I really miss my ThinkPad (with Mint) whilst I use it. I'm on the Mac probably 95% of the time but other than the battery life and efficiency it has nothing else going for it in comparison. It has a worse screen, awful keyboard, toy UI, and terrible accessibility as my eyesight ages. I wish the non-Apple world would get their act together.
But I really miss my ThinkPad (with Mint) whilst I use it. I'm on the Mac probably 95% of the time but other than the battery life and efficiency it has nothing else going for it in comparison. It has a worse screen, awful keyboard, toy UI, and terrible accessibility as my eyesight ages. I wish the non-Apple world would get their act together.
Performance only needs to be good enough and my laptop is rarely unplugged. I prefer alternative form factors. Touchscreen is great. Trackpads without buttons suck.
Dare giving some citation?
I'm not sure this Mac/Windows, Text Editor/IDE makes sense. Apple platform (macOS/iOS) development centers on Xcode, which is of course an IDE.
I've never had a choice in development machines. I've been stuck on OSX for 7 years at this point.
My company provided a macbook pro but I stopped using it shortly after starting and do all development on my windows laptop
Same. And it's because you cannot develop for iOS without a Mac.
In the official Microsoft announcement, they say this
> optimizing Visual Studio, accessible through the C# Dev Kit for VS Code, which is accessible on any OS and Microsoft Dev Box also on any operating system.
Can anyone explain to me how Visual Studio is accessible via C# Devi Kit for VS Code and how Microsoft Dev Box is meant to work here? I thought Dev Box was just a developer focused cloud workstation, which would run windows, which wouldn't really help here
> optimizing Visual Studio, accessible through the C# Dev Kit for VS Code, which is accessible on any OS and Microsoft Dev Box also on any operating system.
Can anyone explain to me how Visual Studio is accessible via C# Devi Kit for VS Code and how Microsoft Dev Box is meant to work here? I thought Dev Box was just a developer focused cloud workstation, which would run windows, which wouldn't really help here
C# Dev Kit [0] is a Preview extension for VS Code that adds a lot of the Visual Studio features people miss in VS Code into VS Code: Solution Explorer, Test Explorer (for C#), IntelliCode. C# Dev Kit runs on every platform supported by VS Code.
[0] https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-dotne...
[0] https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-dotne...
Does this make VS Code a parity experience though, or is it always perpetually behind in some way that makes Visual Studio stand above?
"Parity Experience" is largely subjective, and I'm not sure that I can answer that.
Especially with the complicated twist that "Visual Studio for Mac" for many was not close to "parity" with (regular) Visual Studio either.
This announcement means VS Code plus C# Dev Kit (and optionally the MAUI extension) will be the only officially supported experience on macOS and Linux, nothing to directly compare "parity" to. Whether or not the experience feels "parity" on Windows versus (regular) Visual Studio may be irrelevant.
Especially with the complicated twist that "Visual Studio for Mac" for many was not close to "parity" with (regular) Visual Studio either.
This announcement means VS Code plus C# Dev Kit (and optionally the MAUI extension) will be the only officially supported experience on macOS and Linux, nothing to directly compare "parity" to. Whether or not the experience feels "parity" on Windows versus (regular) Visual Studio may be irrelevant.
It totally depends on how you're using Visual Studio. If you're like me and use about 1% of the features, the VS Code probably covers all your bases.
Please discontinue Visual Studio in all platforms and improve C# support for VS Code.
Oh please don’t.
Visual Studio Code is nowhere close to the development environment that Visual Studio was 15 years ago. I’m not even sure how you’d add the features a lot of people need in VS to VS Code. It’s just not the same kind of tool.
Visual Studio Code is nowhere close to the development environment that Visual Studio was 15 years ago. I’m not even sure how you’d add the features a lot of people need in VS to VS Code. It’s just not the same kind of tool.
I'm curious what are your use cases for which vs code is not suitable? I'm on windows and I work everyday in c# on the backend and I use vscode almost exclusively because I'm really sick of VS. I really dislike the button first Interface and I dislike it's input lag. In vscode keyboard focused workflow and extension interface is first class. You can set up your own extension and build custom stuff for your workflow in no time. It's truly empowering.
The only time I start up VS is when I'm consolidating package versions of the solution, but maybe there is even an extension for that, I didn't look.
People are shitting on vscode for electron but my experience is it uses less ram and it is far more responsive than VS (I did not use rider so I cannot compare).
It’s a lot of the higher SKU features mainly in VS that I haven’t found equivalents of elsewhere (although maybe they exist).
Two examples that come to mind are IntelliTrace and the snapshot debugger (PDB snapshots from a live session are a step change in terms of debugging live issues).
Two examples that come to mind are IntelliTrace and the snapshot debugger (PDB snapshots from a live session are a step change in terms of debugging live issues).
Related news from June:
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/visualstudio/announcing-cshar...
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/visualstudio/announcing-cshar...
I didn't know it existed. Is it native (AppKit), webview/electron/etc-based or using some dotnet/mono weirdo UI framework abstraction?
I guess they feel VS Code has gotten good enough for dotnet stuff now.
https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/mac/
I guess they feel VS Code has gotten good enough for dotnet stuff now.
https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/mac/
It was native! Which makes it all the more surprising. Personally I think it had a lot of potential, but perhaps they just decided they didn’t have sufficient focus/resources to compete with Rider.
I normally hate web-based desktop apps with a passion, but VS Code on Mac made me switch from Emacs after 25 years of continous usage. (Hat tip to 'Awesome Emacs Keymap - VSCode emacs keybinding with multi cursor support' - https://github.com/whitphx/vscode-emacs-mcx.)
I can see how they want to focus on that.
Can't wait for Microsoft to ruin it, like they always do with all great apps eventually. Presumably as the awesome people who created them moved on, instead of doing 'maintenance'. And then that pressure for increased monetization.
I have a feeling Emacs will always be there if they do, though.
I can see how they want to focus on that.
Can't wait for Microsoft to ruin it, like they always do with all great apps eventually. Presumably as the awesome people who created them moved on, instead of doing 'maintenance'. And then that pressure for increased monetization.
I have a feeling Emacs will always be there if they do, though.
Good news for Rider I guess
Pathetic. I assume some VP got their promotion though. Look at all the literally wasted time and effort.
This should really make clear that Visual Studio Code for Mac will continue to be supported somewhere sooner than the last sentence of the article.
Why did anyone believe M$'s hype about cross-platform .Net development? It was only a matter of time. Now Mac OS X is clearly a second class citizen. Anyone who lived through the late 90s/early 2000s will not be surprised. I also don't believe all the VS Code love. Sooner or later M$ will turn the screw.
Did you ever use Visual Studio on mac? It's not the same thing as VS on Windows, at all. They just bought another IDE and rebranded it. If you want to do Cross platform .Net development, I would use VS Code for it.
Plus, when they said "cross-platform", I think they were thinking more about backend linux than they were about frontend mac/iOS.
Plus, when they said "cross-platform", I think they were thinking more about backend linux than they were about frontend mac/iOS.
Yeah, to my understanding Visual Studio for Mac was a fork of MonoDevelop [0].
Microsoft does also mean mac/iOS frontend for cross-platform. There's a cross-platform MAUI Extension for VS Code in Preview: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/visualstudio/announcing-the-d...
[0] https://www.monodevelop.com/
Microsoft does also mean mac/iOS frontend for cross-platform. There's a cross-platform MAUI Extension for VS Code in Preview: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/visualstudio/announcing-the-d...
[0] https://www.monodevelop.com/
Yes I did use it. I'm not saying VS Mac was comparable to VS Windows in fact I had my doubts about M$'s cross-platform development hype throughout the VS Mac saga. The point is the M$ don't give a **ck about anything other than restoring their monopoly position through Windows. Their concession to Linux happened whilst they were fleecing Red Hat and SuSe with bogus Linux patents and financing SCO's disastrous UNIX lawsuit. M$ will never change.
Your use of M$ makes it very hard to take you seriously tbh
> they were thinking more about backend linux than they were about frontend mac/iOS
How can that be when they were/are pushing .Net MAUI so hard?
How can that be when they were/are pushing .Net MAUI so hard?
I didn't say macos wasn't a target, just that it's less important than other platforms. It's a small share of the market
DotNet is great for cross-platform.
Native builds cross-compiled with a huge standard library and excellent performance. This is just about IDE priorities, and even though I use it I understand that VS Mac was always niche. Linux dotnet devs use VS Code or Rider anyway so no change there, and this just brings Mac in line with them.
Worth remembering in all this that the developers of Go, Python, PHP, Ruby etc (to name a few, all of which I use and am not dissing) don't produce their own IDEs. You wouldn't expect them too, and would never say their cross-platform creds are bad because of it, so why is MS different just because they choose to produce optional extras beyond the basic language tooling? By that logic you'd have to reach the (ridiculous) conclusion that Go, Python, PHP, Ruby etc are even worse for cross-platform. Double standards really.
Native builds cross-compiled with a huge standard library and excellent performance. This is just about IDE priorities, and even though I use it I understand that VS Mac was always niche. Linux dotnet devs use VS Code or Rider anyway so no change there, and this just brings Mac in line with them.
Worth remembering in all this that the developers of Go, Python, PHP, Ruby etc (to name a few, all of which I use and am not dissing) don't produce their own IDEs. You wouldn't expect them too, and would never say their cross-platform creds are bad because of it, so why is MS different just because they choose to produce optional extras beyond the basic language tooling? By that logic you'd have to reach the (ridiculous) conclusion that Go, Python, PHP, Ruby etc are even worse for cross-platform. Double standards really.
That has nothing to do with .Net cross platform, it’s about having one cross platform dev environment (VSCode + C# Dev Kit) instead of continue to maintain both the old code base of VS for Mac (previously Xamarin Stduio, previously MonoDevelop) in addition to VSCode.
That's no excuse. M$ has the resources to make VS Mac fully compatible with VS Windows. They just chose to keep the Mac version a second-class citizen.
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Well, that sucks, but Apple had it coming. Try developing an iOS app without spending a shitton of money on overpriced Apple hardware.
How is this related to developing iOS apps?
because visual studio for mac is the thing you used to develop ios apps with xamarin or .net for ios or .net maui?
Too bad. Loved VS Code.
Ok, well, I'm not doing JetBrains. Too fucking slow and costs money. I would renew my license if it was not such a slow set of IDEs.
Like, how many fucking times does a program need to index before starting? One time I counted, it felt like it indexed like 5 times before I could type.
The money is the least of my problems, but VSCode was unbeatable. Fast, versatile and free. I'm happy to pay for good software and I already do. Like TablePlus for example.
Maybe I should look to vim or neovim.
EDIT: whoops. I totally didn't read. Ok I rescind my comment. Mea culpa. I'm an idiot.
Ok, well, I'm not doing JetBrains. Too fucking slow and costs money. I would renew my license if it was not such a slow set of IDEs.
Like, how many fucking times does a program need to index before starting? One time I counted, it felt like it indexed like 5 times before I could type.
The money is the least of my problems, but VSCode was unbeatable. Fast, versatile and free. I'm happy to pay for good software and I already do. Like TablePlus for example.
Maybe I should look to vim or neovim.
EDIT: whoops. I totally didn't read. Ok I rescind my comment. Mea culpa. I'm an idiot.
You could at least read enough of an article to know that it's not talking about VSCode.
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VS Code isn't being discontinued for Mac - just Visual Studio.
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/visualstudio/visual-studio-fo...
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/visualstudio/visual-studio-fo...
Visual Studio Code and Visual Studio are separate products. Only Visual Studio is leaving macOS, while VS Code will remain available (at least, until there's a separate announcement for VS Code).
This is a separate product still. "Visual Studio for Mac" is a rebrand of monodevelop/xamarin from after microsoft bought them out.
Well, even more useless :)
> Ugh. Too bad. Loved VS Code.
You should read and understand the article on which you comment. This is not about VS Code.
You should read and understand the article on which you comment. This is not about VS Code.
Lol you haven’t used a slow ide if you think Rider is slow. Visual studio is super slow in comparison.
Thankfully Visual Studio isn't the same application as VSCode, you can keep using it.
This is about Visual Studio, not Visual Studio Code. Two different products.
Hmm that sounds appealing /s
JetBrains Rider is the only viable alternative now.
VS Code on Mac may catch up, but I dislike it as my primary IDE for C# (great for lots of other things though).
Overall I think this is a mistake on Microsoft’s part unless they are also planning a significant move to pull out of cross-platform app development too (ie iOS/Android + desktop).
They are crippling the app development story for .NET on Mac now IMHO, and it wasn’t great to start with. This weakens an already quite fragile ecosystem for creating Mac/iOS apps with .NET. This is on top of MAUI being launched before it was ready and Xamarin being discontinued much too quickly.
This seems like a strong indicator to me that I should not pick .NET for greenfield cross-platform (mobile) app projects going forwards.