[HN Gopher] Microsoft is retiring Visual Studio for Mac in 2024
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       Microsoft is retiring Visual Studio for Mac in 2024
        
       Author : kaypee901
       Score  : 121 points
       Date   : 2023-11-03 20:14 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (visualstudio.microsoft.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (visualstudio.microsoft.com)
        
       | gberger wrote:
       | Not to be confused with Visual Studio Code, the text editor,
       | which will remain supported.
        
         | rco8786 wrote:
         | > the text editor
         | 
         | This is...not a super accurate way to describe VSCode
        
           | outside1234 wrote:
           | This was how the Visual Studio crowd inside of Microsoft
           | described it until VSCode basically destroyed their business.
           | :)
        
             | phillipcarter wrote:
             | I wouldn't use the word destroyed - Visual Studio (Windows)
             | has been a billion-dollar ARR business for a long time, and
             | likely still is. The trajectory is certainly not in favor
             | of it, but there's an utterly massive number of enterprise
             | .NET and C++ devs on Windows who will be using it for a
             | long time.
        
               | umeshunni wrote:
               | The crazy thing is that - I worked on VS 10 years before
               | you did - and it was at a (near) billion $ ARR back then.
               | So, it looks like it has been a flat business for a long
               | time.
        
               | phillipcarter wrote:
               | Oh, undoubtedly. When I was there the writing was on the
               | wall -- it's got a decade or two more life to it, but
               | it's long peaked on the ARR curve.
        
               | uxp8u61q wrote:
               | That's what happens to mature products. Not everything is
               | a brand new startup that grows 1000% every quarter.
        
               | wkat4242 wrote:
               | It's more that Microsoft lost the cross platform war.
               | .NET lost and electron won. They even use it (or their
               | own WebView knockoff) for their own products now. So
               | there's no more need to give .NET away. They just milk
               | the niche market that still depends on it.
        
               | thesuperbigfrog wrote:
               | >> the niche market that still depends on it.
               | 
               | That "niche market" likely pulls in billions of dollars
               | from enterprises.
        
               | benbristow wrote:
               | Indeed. To use the new C# devkit in Visual Studio Code
               | you need a Visual Studio/MSDN subscription too.
               | 
               | JetBrains Rider's a bigger competitor but even then (at
               | least at my org.) most devs have a Visual Studio
               | Professional/Enterprise subscription as a backup.
        
               | notpushkin wrote:
               | There are alternatives though. I've heard somebody hooked
               | up Samsung's open source C# debugger, for example.
        
             | atonse wrote:
             | I don't know how good VS Code is now (with regards to all
             | the features VS had) mainly cuz I don't code in .NET, but I
             | still miss the powerful tools from VS that I had nearly 20
             | years ago (for C#), in Ruby, Elixir, etc (and some other
             | languages).
             | 
             | The amazing debugging, stepping through, etc that Eclipse
             | and Visual Studio has, were leaps and bounds more superior
             | to all the stuff that was lacking in the simple text
             | editors.
             | 
             | LSP has helped tremendously. And there are similar
             | debugging protocols. It's kind of getting there, but again,
             | nearly 20 years ago, I could start up a project and hit the
             | debugger immediately without fiddling around with settings
             | and googling around.
             | 
             | And I feel the lack of such good tooling has enabled a
             | whole generation of "print string" debugging (which I
             | totally do now) because we simply can't easily run and step
             | through.
             | 
             | Is this other people's experience? Hopefully the debug
             | world is better in Go/Rust land than it is in Elixir/Ruby
             | land.
        
               | notpushkin wrote:
               | > but again, nearly 20 years ago, I could start up a
               | project and hit the debugger immediately without fiddling
               | around with settings and googling around
               | 
               | It's working in VS Code now, too. For popular languages,
               | you just have to install the respective plugin (only
               | TypeScript is builtin), but it's just a click on the
               | prompt. I've been doing lots of Python debugging and it's
               | pretty much a seamless experience.
        
               | atonse wrote:
               | Excellent. I remember C# support for .NET Core was really
               | solid even 6-7 years ago.
               | 
               | So for a large number of use cases, they have to be
               | talking about retiring VS eventually too.
               | 
               | This multi-process architecture (with language servers,
               | debug servers, remote SSH mode, etc probably making much
               | better use of multiple cores has to be easier to migrate
               | to)
        
               | notpushkin wrote:
               | Yeah. Remote mode is a killer feature IMO (sadly the
               | official implementation is closed source, and there's no
               | support for Docker in unofficial ones - although
               | coincidentally I'm working on this)
        
               | edgyquant wrote:
               | Properly navigating through python modules (clicking
               | through to the module source) doesn't even work nicely in
               | VSCode (even with the base python extension installed) so
               | I don't have high hopes for debugging being any better.
               | VSCode is amazing for typescript though, and I had great
               | success doing C++ and Rust. Python seems lacking in my
               | experience though
        
               | notpushkin wrote:
               | > Properly navigating through python modules (clicking
               | through to the module source) doesn't even work nicely
               | 
               | That's weird, it works for me just fine.
        
               | somewhereoutth wrote:
               | In Node/React/JS land with VS Code I mostly pray for rare
               | function names (miss-spelt words for such names are
               | gold!). There are definitely some things I miss about the
               | Java ecosystem.
               | 
               | But then I debug with console.log (nee
               | System.out.println) so probably I'm some sort of
               | neanderthal.
        
               | irrational wrote:
               | Have you tried JetBrains IDEs? I use IntelliJ for
               | everything from database work to web development to
               | Python coding and more.
        
           | swatcoder wrote:
           | It's in the same feature family as emacs, Sublime, Notepad++,
           | etc -- all of which are called text editors.
           | 
           | They all have extension architectures that expand on what
           | that means, but they all cover the same kind of use cases and
           | they all stop short of traditional Integrated Development
           | Environments.
           | 
           | Unless you're saying that none of the others should be called
           | text editors either (a daunting uphill fight against
           | history), it's an exactly accurate description.
        
             | jupp0r wrote:
             | They cover all use cases of traditional IDEs, but you need
             | to edit files instead of clicking through endless menu
             | hierarchies. They also don't tell you what your compiler or
             | build system should be.
        
             | hateful wrote:
             | VSCode is far superior to the actual Visual Studio in so
             | many ways. It's definitely closer to Visual Studio than it
             | is to Notepad++.
             | 
             | On personal note: my company pays for Visual Studio
             | Ultimate + Jetbrains for me and I rarely open it these days
             | and use VSCode 99% of the time.
        
               | globular-toast wrote:
               | Yeah, it's superior to Visual Studio because it's more
               | like Emacs, a text editor.
               | 
               | Emacs users saw the benefits of a single text editor a
               | long, long time ago. Back when I started programming it
               | was common for people to use a different IDE per
               | language. There was VS, Eclipse, Dreamweaver etc. I
               | thought that was insane. It's been funny seeing people
               | finally realise the same a decade later.
        
               | no_wizard wrote:
               | counterpoint:
               | 
               | JetBrains IDEs are the sweetspot between absolute single
               | purpose IDEs (like Eclipse) and text editors that require
               | plugins to be useful (broadly speaking).
               | 
               | I am all in on JetBrains, to be perfectly transparent,
               | but I have yet to see anything come close to the seamless
               | experience I've had with their IDEs
        
               | wkat4242 wrote:
               | I don't agree. Visual Studio Code lacks the actual
               | 'visual' part, like the form builder.
        
               | galangalalgol wrote:
               | That is a good point about the name, never thought about
               | it. And if I ever wanted to write gui code that only
               | worked in windows, I guess I'd consider it? But that has
               | never been a use case for me, and everything else about
               | vscode is better.
        
               | SirMaster wrote:
               | What can VS Code do that Visual Studio can't?
        
               | thesuperbigfrog wrote:
               | >> What can VS Code do that Visual Studio can't?
               | 
               | Run natively on Linux:
               | 
               | https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/setup/linux
        
               | galangalalgol wrote:
               | Set breakpoints and step through rust code running
               | remotely on a microcontroller?
        
               | thesuavefactor wrote:
               | Try publishing a .net webforms project in vs code. Or
               | jetbrains Rider for that matter.
        
               | this_steve_j wrote:
               | The gauntlet has been thrown! I respectfully decline the
               | challenge, as I am no longer a gentleman of the ViewState
               | society.
        
               | philippejara wrote:
               | And so is emacs, but nobody has an issue calling it a
               | text editor.
        
               | booleandilemma wrote:
               | For Windows development Visual Studio is still more
               | powerful. People who have developed solely on Macs or
               | juniors who started in 2020 with only web dev experience
               | won't understand and they're usually the ones that have
               | the "VS Code is better" opinion.
        
             | ghshephard wrote:
             | I think the point at which you have integrated intelligent
             | breakpoints, seamless in situ data inspection, call stack
             | tracking, proper lexical scoping of variables, etc, etc..
             | you've left the realm of "text editor"
        
             | vbezhenar wrote:
             | Does Emacs also have text editor?
        
               | ArchOversight wrote:
               | No, it's an operating system. Sadly they left out the
               | text editor.
        
               | sarahlwalks wrote:
               | There actually is a text editor in there somewhere at
               | least if you believe some of the MIT neckbeards. But you
               | have to sort of tease it out with the proper meta key
               | what-have-yous
        
               | galangalalgol wrote:
               | You can install vi into emacs, and vi is the best text
               | editor.
        
               | alexvoda wrote:
               | You can however use a facsimile of Vim called Evil.
        
               | jrgd wrote:
               | i once had a fax machine running on emac
        
               | coliveira wrote:
               | No, but some people insist in use it for this purpose.
        
               | dist-epoch wrote:
               | It does, but it's a pretty mediocre one.
        
             | a_wild_dandan wrote:
             | Categorizing VS Code as akin to Microsoft Word or Google
             | Docs seems...profoundly weird and more confusing than
             | elucidating. I'm gonna stick with "IDE", personally.
             | 
             | [EDIT] It seems folks won't classify Word/GDocs as "text
             | editors" due to their additional features. Great point! I'm
             | getting deja vu...
        
               | skyyler wrote:
               | Microsoft Word and Google Docs are _Word Processors_
               | which are technically for editing text but are now much
               | closer to desktop publishing software, especially with
               | the emphasis on styling and graphics.
               | 
               | emacs, vim, and VSCode are _Source Code Editors_ which
               | are a type of text editor. You can make a source code
               | editor into an IDE by adding integrated compiling and
               | debugging tools.
        
               | layer8 wrote:
               | Word and Google Docs are not text editors [0], they are
               | word processors [1].
               | 
               | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_editor
               | 
               | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_processor_program
        
               | a_wild_dandan wrote:
               | Yep. I _didn 't_ call Word/Docs/Code text editors, and
               | all for the same reason. That's the joke. Guess I was too
               | cute by half.
        
               | eviks wrote:
               | That would indeed be weird given the fact that the text
               | editor does not edit rich text like Word does
        
             | rco8786 wrote:
             | What on earth would VSCode need to add to be classified as
             | an IDE? It does so much more than Sublime/Notepad++/eMacs
             | out of the box. It's not even close.
        
               | galangalalgol wrote:
               | The line has become fuzzy now that vim has solid LSP
               | support for auto complete and highlights errors in real
               | time.
        
               | swatcoder wrote:
               | Vertical _integration_ with the toolchain, for one. Most
               | text editor extensions rely on least common denominator
               | integration with tooling through an adapter layer like
               | LSP.
               | 
               | And that works pretty darn well, but struggles to
               | _integrate_ all of the toolchain 's _development_
               | opportunities into the workspace _environment_.
               | 
               | Horizontal _integration_ across workspace modules would
               | help too. Most text editor extensions rely on a least
               | common denominator UX language through command palettes
               | and button arrays and human-editable config files.
               | 
               | And that also works pretty darn well, but struggles to
               | _integrate_ all of the workspace _environment_ 's
               | features into coordinated _development_ workflows.
               | 
               | There is no slight being made against VS Code to say that
               | it's not the same as a more fully _integrated development
               | environment_. It 's a very powerful tool in itself,
               | capable of meeting most developer's needs and is far more
               | _extensible_ and _adaptable_ than IDE 's aim for.
        
             | gustavus wrote:
             | > It's in the same feature family as emacs,
             | 
             | I resent that emacs is a full on OS that just happens to
             | have a less than stellar text editor.
        
           | belfthrow wrote:
           | From the crappy bolt on things required to make it anywhere
           | close to a decent IDE, it is essentially vim with tons of
           | incompatible plugins that continually conflict one and other.
        
             | fshr wrote:
             | Can you provide an example of a crappy bolt on or a set of
             | incompatible plugins? I've not had that experience and I've
             | used it for six or seven languages.
        
               | wiseowise wrote:
               | Calva and vim plugin. Anything that adds custom
               | shortcuts.
        
           | LoganDark wrote:
           | It is a text editor. People treat it as an IDE, because it
           | can be made that way with plugins, but fundamentally it is a
           | text editor.
        
             | a_wild_dandan wrote:
             | A fresh VS Code install has all the usual IDE tools I need
             | for my job (editing, debugging, symbol parsing, etc). Is it
             | still not an IDE? Suppose it was missing something for
             | someone else's workflow. What if we bundled all the
             | extensions needed for most developers into the install? Is
             | it an IDE then? We just need less modularity/more bloat at
             | install?
             | 
             | Distinguishing VS Code from IDEs seems so forced and
             | unintuitive to me. What's the point?
        
               | jacurtis wrote:
               | I've always described VSCode as a text editor with IDE
               | capabilities. I would personally call it a text editor
               | and not an IDE though. If you do a fresh install of
               | VSCode you may notice that almost everything is a plugin.
               | Even basic language support for popular languages like
               | python are technically plugins. Everything you add from
               | there are as well. A true vanilla install of VSCode is
               | truly a text editor.
               | 
               | However it was designed really well in that it has a lot
               | of good integrations which make plugins feel almost
               | integrated and natural. Not to mention the plugin process
               | is the smoothest i've seen of any text editor so for many
               | people it is transparent, they just think they are
               | enabling features and don't realize they are actually
               | just downloading 3,000 plugins.
               | 
               | I'm not trying to argue a no-true-scottsman here. If
               | people want to call it an IDE they can.
               | 
               | But download something from JetBrains and give that a go
               | or something like xCode or the real Visual Studio and
               | you'll see how deeply "integrated" it is, so that it
               | feels like a full featured developer environment from the
               | start, hence the IDE moniker.
               | 
               | There's nothing wrong with VSCode. You can do your whole
               | job in it i'm sure. But compare it to something like
               | JetBrains and it is really really hard to put them truly
               | next to eachother. With enough customization you can get
               | VSCode close, but it sure isn't like that without a lot
               | of customization and plugins from 100 different
               | developers with varying levels of support and
               | reliability.
               | 
               | Fwiw, the Wikipedia page for Visual Studio calls it an
               | IDE and the wikipedia page for VSCode calls it a "source
               | code editor". So maybe as a "source code editor", thats
               | where it bridges the gap between IDE and Text Editor.
        
           | irrational wrote:
           | It is not integrated, so it is not an IDE. Text editor seems
           | like the best description for it.
        
             | IshKebab wrote:
             | It does have an integrated debugger, build systems, code
             | intelligence, refactoring tools, and version control.
             | 
             | What other things need to be integrated before it can be
             | blessed as an IDE?
        
         | jug wrote:
         | With Microsoft backtracking on their Visual Studio non-Code
         | designer interface and no longer offering it for modern Windows
         | apps (WinUI 3)... Honestly... Is this a long term plan to just
         | sunset Visual Studio?
         | 
         | It always felt like it to me. From the get go. But they deny
         | it. Still, Visual Studio is so heavy, feels sluggish, written
         | in WPF, and not from an era of modern, plugin-based software
         | development.
         | 
         | Visual Studio Code also offers many features VS don't. Oh, and
         | it perfectly debugged Python code on Windows for me (VS somehow
         | failed to attach its debugger to Python.exe) and auto-detected
         | venv's for me from the mere folder structure, none of which
         | Visual Studio did.
         | 
         | Code feels like the .NET Core of Microsoft editors to me. Not
         | only new thing for cross-platform development, but the next
         | thing for Windows development too. Just like .NET Core.
         | 
         | Sure, Code still miss things but those only feel like
         | extensions away at best. A far better and less monolithic
         | design. Now, if we could only have it be WebView2 based rather
         | than Electron on Windows and cut 50% RAM use right off the
         | bat...
        
           | alexvoda wrote:
           | The WPF version of VS has supported many plugins from the
           | start (2010). The previous version (2003-2008) also supported
           | plugins but not sure how extensively. Before that VS was just
           | the name for a suite of different tools (Visual C++, Visual
           | Basic, Visual InterDev and a few others).
        
           | biugbkifcjk wrote:
           | As someone that works with a lot of different languages -
           | vscode has been amazing. I feel its inevitable that a
           | majority of the plugins I rely on start requiring some sort
           | of subscription - which I'm not looking forward too.
        
           | usrusr wrote:
           | Denial might be as much a show for the motivation of the team
           | that keeps maintaining the relic for some large old cash cow
           | customers as it perhaps is for the outside world. Old
           | customers that are perfectly locked in across the entire
           | product portfolio. But if VS suddenly disappeared, all the
           | other business they have with those customers would suddenly
           | be open for reconsideration as well.
        
       | verdverm wrote:
       | Better link: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-
       | us/visualstudio/mac/what-happ...
        
       | yodon wrote:
       | Jet brains Rider is a great replacement (including Copilot
       | integration)
        
         | lizardking wrote:
         | Seconded. It's my daily driver for back end .net development on
         | mac. I've experimented with the new vs code extensions, but the
         | experience still isn't as smooth as using a proper IDE.
        
         | Yabood wrote:
         | Agreed. Been using for a few years and have zero complaints.
        
         | leosanchez wrote:
         | If you are using linux it is the only solution.
        
         | biglyburrito wrote:
         | JetBrains Rider on macOS is almost as good as Visual Studio
         | 2022 on Windows. And JetBrains DataGrip is by far the best
         | database IDE on macOS or Windows; going back from it to SQL
         | Server Management Studio (SSMS) recently was painful.
        
           | sumedh wrote:
           | SSMS has a unique feature where if you run multiple queries,
           | it will show the output of all those queries below at the
           | same time, you cannot do that with Datagrip.
        
             | bdcravens wrote:
             | SSMS also has a number of excellent integrations with SQL
             | Server itself. Overall, DataGrip is my tool of choice, but
             | I occasionally boot up Windows in Parallels when I need
             | some of the SSMS-specific tools.
        
             | ozim wrote:
             | SSMS has unique feature of starting away too long even on
             | my dev laptop.
             | 
             | Visual Studio starts faster not much more though noticeable
             | but these two have same base.
             | 
             | So just wonder why is that or it is just my imagination.
        
           | wredue wrote:
           | Man I wish DataGrip would improve their Oracle database
           | capability. I really just hate toad so much.
        
         | snapetom wrote:
         | 10 years ago, at a job interview, the manager asked me what IDE
         | I wanted. I can't remember what I was using at the time, but he
         | asked if I wanted PHPStorm. I said I had never used it. He
         | said, "It'll change your life," and it did. Been a hard core
         | Jetbrains Kool-Aid drinker ever since that job.
        
       | ZanyProgrammer wrote:
       | I assume they always kept it shitty as to not cannibalize VS
       | Code, which does get a lot of use (obviously it's very popular).
       | If you ever used it you'd see that it doesn't feel like normal
       | Windows VS, and it doesn't really feel like a good native Mac app
       | either.
        
         | theandrewbailey wrote:
         | What? Isn't Visual Studio a paid product (aside from the
         | Community edition)? VS Code is free, so if anything, they would
         | keep VS Code as the shitty product.
        
           | babypuncher wrote:
           | Visual Studio for Mac was also free. It also wasn't developed
           | in house, it's just Xamarin Studio with a new name.
           | 
           | I think they are killing it for two reasons:
           | 
           | * Cross-platform .NET development on VS Code has gotten very
           | good.
           | 
           | * JetBrains Rider is even better, especially for
           | professionals, and becoming very hard to compete with.
        
           | LoganDark wrote:
           | > if anything, they would keep VS Code as the shitty product.
           | 
           | Getting VS Code as popular as it is today was the strategy.
           | For that, it needed to not be shitty.
           | 
           | The enshittification only began after they took over the
           | market
        
         | babypuncher wrote:
         | This is because it wasn't originally a visual studio product.
         | This is just the name they gave Xamarin Studio after the
         | company was acquired by Microsoft.
        
         | The_Colonel wrote:
         | > I assume they always kept it shitty as to not cannibalize VS
         | Code,
         | 
         | What a strange take. Why wouldn't they rather not create it in
         | the first place if they were so worried about cannibalizing
         | their free product by ... another free product?
        
           | dcgudeman wrote:
           | I agree it is strange take but unfortunately when you view
           | everything through some sort of "big corp conspiracy" lense
           | you end up with ideas like this. It's super common on hacker
           | news. Tiresome but ever present.
           | 
           | The most logical explanation would be something like "they
           | released this product because they were making a huge effort
           | to get C# to be a truly cross platform language but the mac
           | adoption remained low so they decided to retire this product
           | and focus more on VS code which has massive adoption on mac"
           | 
           | But that would be too aligned with most developers priorities
           | so it is not even on the radar for most people.
        
       | harshalizee wrote:
       | This is my primary driver on MacOS. I had no idea they were going
       | to sunset this
        
         | tambourine_man wrote:
         | You may be confusing it with Visual Studio Code, also called VS
         | Code. Yeah, it's not confusing at all.
        
         | jakv wrote:
         | I found the news out by the little announcement banner at the
         | top of the app when I opened it.
        
       | ejb999 wrote:
       | Probably for the best - been a VS developer for many, many years,
       | since the first version - but the Mac version was never even
       | close to as good as the Windows version - as much as I wished it
       | was, as my Mac is my primary machine.
       | 
       | They either needed to kill it, or make it at least as good as it
       | was on Windows - guess they decided killing it was easier.
        
         | pif wrote:
         | > the Mac version was never even close to as good as the
         | Windows version
         | 
         | Care to add any detail, and reason?
        
           | sgjohnson wrote:
           | Because the VS version for macOS is essentially just
           | MonoDevelop.
        
           | chedabob wrote:
           | It shared nothing with Visual Studio apart from the name as
           | it was just a rebrand of MonoDevelop.
           | 
           | I tried to use it on a Xamarin project a few years ago, and
           | between the poor autocomplete and frequent crashes, I
           | switched to JetBrains Rider for everything but XAML editing.
           | There were also features that were locked behind a $250/month
           | Enterprise subscription which other IDEs provide for free.
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MonoDevelop#Visual_Studio_for_.
           | ..
        
         | SoftTalker wrote:
         | Never really made sense that they offered it at all.
         | 
         | The number of .NET shops that have their developers on Macs has
         | got to be quite small.
        
           | jspaetzel wrote:
           | It was an acquisition, came with Xamarin
        
           | whizzter wrote:
           | We've got almost all of our backends on .NET, but for us we
           | have plenty of front-end developers and those who're not
           | really full-stack are on Mac's and Linux.
           | 
           | Our modern .NET Core codebases aren't much of an issue (pre
           | core 3.1/5 are tricky without Arm support but those are easy
           | enough to upgrade) but we have a bunch of older Framework
           | codebases that forces them to run Windows VM's.
           | 
           | The equation for MS is probably that VSMac was good for those
           | targetting the older .NET systems but with Apple going for
           | ARM it's just too much work to get them decent (and Mono's
           | Framework support didn't seem good enough for even a fairly
           | simple project we tried to get running recently) and with the
           | new C# SDK for VSCode mostly giving parity for newer projects
           | there is fairly little reason to spend any effort on VSMac.
        
       | gnabgib wrote:
       | Previously (with comment volume): "Visual Studio for Mac
       | Retirement Announcement" (39 points, 2 months ago, 7
       | comments)[0], "Microsoft is discontinuing Visual Studio for Mac
       | after major overhaul" (116 points, 111 comments)[1], JetBrains
       | also did 65% discount when it was first announced [over now] (56
       | points, 64 comments)[2]
       | 
       | [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37325427 [1]:
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37326419 [2]:
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37369946
        
       | wkat4242 wrote:
       | It's just really the rebranded xamarin studio. The real visual
       | studio was never available anyway
        
       | riwsky wrote:
       | There was a Visual Studio for Mac?
        
         | Dudester230602 wrote:
         | They were desperate to attract more devs who don't care about
         | Microsoft anyways so they started throwing things at wall to
         | see what will stick. VS for Mac did not, but Chrome browser
         | masquerading as a text editor did.
        
       | fredsmith219 wrote:
       | So does this mean no more Mac versions of Excel or word? Or are
       | those written using the Apple development tools?
        
         | gwbas1c wrote:
         | The announcement has nothing to do with Excel and Word.
        
       | pkdpic wrote:
       | I wonder how many cumulative calories were expended on the mini
       | anxiety / disbelief attacks caused by n number of people
       | momentarily misreading this as "Visual Studio Code" rather than
       | "Visual Studio".
       | 
       | Not that I'm the biggest VSCode fanboy although I use it
       | constantly. And not that I even own a Mac anymore come to think
       | of it. But still, the wording of this post definitely contributed
       | to global warming.
        
         | edgyquant wrote:
         | Id say not a single one. No one would believe Microsoft was
         | going to kill VSCode
        
       | gwbas1c wrote:
       | Visual Studio for Mac had its roots in Xamarian Studio, which had
       | its roots in MonoDevelop. Each one has always been a rebrand of
       | the previous product.
       | 
       | (Edit: I forgot to point out that Visual Studio for Mac never
       | appeared to be a port. It always appeared to be a "clone" of
       | Visual Studio with a very similar UI.)
       | 
       | They've always been rather buggy and unstable compared to Visual
       | Studio on Windows. They were a nice way to do C# on Mac without
       | needing to load a VM; and for the last few years I really
       | appreciated that C# was getting "first class" support on Mac.
       | 
       | I hope C# works well under VS Code.
        
         | Jare wrote:
         | Last I remember, you still need a Visual Studio license to use
         | the C# plugins for VSCode. (free for personal use etc) They're
         | all part of the package, whether Visual Studio itself exists or
         | not.
        
         | Pulcinella wrote:
         | Yep. Hence the somewhat confusing name of the software. It's
         | not Visual Studio(tm) for macOS. It's Visual Studio for
         | Mac(tm).
         | 
         | How well does VSCode work with the Unity engine? My
         | understanding was that for game C# programming on macOS Unity
         | recommended(required?) Visual Studio for Mac(tm).
        
       | namegulf wrote:
       | Anybody using it?
        
       | Obscurity4340 wrote:
       | CodeRunner's way better
        
       | xz18r wrote:
       | One solution to keep on using VS on Mac, for those that are (a)
       | weary of VS Code (b) not willing to change to a (paid) JB Rider,
       | is to use something like Parallels to emulate VS on Windows.
        
         | bdcravens wrote:
         | The principal use case was to build Mac apps using Xamarin,
         | something that really isn't possible in Visual Studio on
         | Windows.
        
       | bilekas wrote:
       | In all fairness, having being forced to work on mac recently for
       | a cross platform application, the nuances of the macOs I hear
       | dotNet people complain about are honestly NOTHING compared to how
       | bad the Visual Studio for mac experience is.
       | 
       | We tried the Rider trial and it was a far superior experience,
       | but the price wasn't justified for our use case.
       | 
       | I and others configured nvim to just work, and some others just
       | stuck to vscode with the cli. Not one person wants to use the
       | Visual Studio anymore. It's wild how Microsoft missed a great
       | opportunity as I find the machines quite good, and the Windows
       | experience with Visual studio is genuinely impressive.
        
         | nvy wrote:
         | >having being forced to work on mac recently for a cross
         | platform application, the nuances of the macOs I hear dotNet
         | people complain about
         | 
         | Can you elaborate? I've done some dotnet work on macOS and it
         | wasn't materially different from working on Linux, in my
         | experience.
        
           | capableweb wrote:
           | My guess is that the "dotNet people" mentioned by parent
           | didn't come from Linux, but from Windows. Different
           | experience using Visual Studio on Windows compared to Linux,
           | one would think ;)
        
             | bilekas wrote:
             | You're right, and I wont criticize them too much, I can
             | understand when you're coming from a very robust ecosystem
             | to something even slightly different, other people stuck in
             | their ways tend to complain!
             | 
             | Edit: Other, not older.
        
           | bilekas wrote:
           | Personally I agree with you, I've worked with mono
           | extensively before too, but there was a few people close to
           | me who would constantly complain about how the library
           | support was lacking. One case I remember off the top of my
           | head was Network related, so working with Samba, and the
           | nuances of support that come with it. Related issues I
           | remember seem to stem from that.
           | 
           | There was a few issues (incomplete in the dotnet core) that
           | would involve particular cases with threat priorities and
           | pooling.
           | 
           | This recent project though, all of the System libs seem to be
           | perfect. My previous comment might have sounded disparaging
           | to Microsoft, but they've done an incredible job recently and
           | deserve credit.
        
         | rokkitmensch wrote:
         | VS Code has utterly failed me for a bog-standard Core project.
         | No jump-to-def, no Intellisense, zilch.
         | 
         | So I expensed a nice KVM and dug the backup Windows laptop out
         | of the closet and got to work without a hitch.
         | 
         | I'm in the habit of preemptively ordering a Mac and a Windows
         | machine for anyone on my team who's so unlucky as to even
         | infrequently have changes to effect on both our iOS and backend
         | systems.
        
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