6 ms·

Can I say that I really like the speed of these updates? The team Microsoft really seems to be invested in this free code editor. And a lot of the features are

by jagermo 10y ago

Can I say that I really like the speed of these updates? The team Microsoft really seems to be invested in this free code editor. And a lot of the features are cool, however I really like: | Help > Keyboard Shortcuts Reference brings up a printable PDF reference sheet of VS Code command keyboard shortcuts. Keep this reference handy and you'll be a VS Code power user in no time.

pavlov 10y ago
The team Microsoft really seems to be invested in this free code editor. It's great strategic marketing. Making Visual Studio Code costs a fraction of what Microsoft spent on the Surface RT marketing campaign (as an example), and the benefits to their image are much more powerful and long-lasting. The Microsoft brand has been completely reborn in the eyes of developers over the past few years. The lows of 2007-2010 seem a distant memory.
- laurentdc 10y ago
  > It's great strategic marketing. Yeah, it's clear they're trying to "save face" in front of the open source community and become more developer-friendly (Bash on Windows too). But I must say, ten years ago when I had to choose between Java and C# for a SCADA project I picked the latter because of the Visual Studio IDE which was already well above the competition (think Eclipse/NetBeans back then). I'm glad they've brought it back for all open source software.
  - mmgutz 10y ago
    I don't think it's so much "sav[ing] face" as much as it is getting the message out they fully support open source. The long term play is azure which is their big money maker. 1/3 of deploys on azure (IIRC) use linux images. Our startup got a huge credit to host on azure and we don't use .NET nor Windows. Competition is good.
- sremani 10y ago
  They are doing it the hardway, every one is entitled to earn their accolades including Microsoft, Google or Apple. Is it marketing, change of culture or otherwise, given the increase of footprint of their editor they are providing real value to developers on non-windows platform in spades.
- jeresuikkila 10y ago
  I wish more companies understood the value of great products that people love to use as marketing instead of spending money on advertising.
  - slackstation 10y ago
    > I wish more companies understood the value of great products that people love to use as marketing instead of spending money on advertising. Companies understand. It's just that making something that people truely like is expensive, takes a long time and is risky. Marketing (in many instances) is cheaper, faster and less risky. Also, it's something you can do with 3rd party providers who do this for many companies. In other words, it's a business problem that can be solved by basically throwing money at it. Building something usually takes insight into the customer, knowledge on how to build the thing that people want and ongoing work at maintaining that thing that makes people so happy. All of this takes a great amount of internal talent, skill and leadership. If the wrong few key people leave, if the corporate culture changes, if the winds of the stock market and profits shift, this can go away. It's much, much easier to just rebrand your way into people's good graces.
- mattmanser 10y ago
  I don't get the end game though, what is the strategy? Ultimately, if you end up using Linux .net core + typescript, they seem to be killing off visual studio, IIS, Windows Server, etc. For what? Azure, glorified hosting that might end up a race to the bottom vs AWS & GCE? Selling SQL server licences? I just don't get the strategy. I'm genuinely asking, where is this actually taking them apart from burning a bunch of money making free tools? Why are they making .Net core?
  - pavlov 10y ago
    Maybe the end game is the same as it always was: find the next profitable thing and leap on it? Microsoft is opportunistic. They were a major UNIX vendor in the '80s (Xenix); then they were married to IBM with OS/2; until one day they weren't. Microsoft has traditionally been the one to get the hate for this because their moves were so brash in the '90s... But the other big tech companies aren't any better. Apple is a friend of open source and standards only when it happens to suit them. Google does lots of open source but they want to be the ones holding the reins at all tiems (Blink, Android, etc.) Facebook spends a lot of money on looking smart and friendly to developers so that we'd ignore the Orwellian pile of information they hold on most people. Etc.
    - orionblastar 10y ago
      Microsoft in the 1990s, had tried to find a replacement for DOS partnering up with IBM. Commodore had the Amiga, Atari had the Atari ST, and Apple had the Macintosh and their operating systems were better than DOS. So out of an advanced DOS project came OS/2 and then the GUI for OS/2. IBM had their own OS/2 and Microsoft had their own OS/2 as well. Microsoft was working on Microsoft OS/2 NT 3.0 when they broke off from IBM, and then renamed it Microsoft Windows NT 3.1 using the Windows 3.X GUI. Microsoft also pushed Windows 3.0 and 3.1 that loaded on top of DOS. IBM had OS/2 2.0 that had WIN-OS2 to run 16 bit Windows apps. Then companies quit making OS/2 native apps and made 16 bit Windows apps instead because OS/2 could run them as did Windows. The big blow to IBM was Microsoft's Windows Tax to OEMs, that is based on how many computers they made, even if Windows was not installed on the new PCs. So if someone wanted to install IBM's OS/2 or Next's Nextstep for Intel chips, or BeOS for Intel, they still had to pay Microsoft the Windows tax. This forced OEMs to preinstall Windows, because they already paid for it with the Windows tax. So it was a combination of OS/2 running 16 bit Windows programs and companies not wanting to make an OS/2 native version, and Microsoft marketing Windows to be used instead of OS/2 by bundling it with every OEM PC sold, that stabbed IBM in the back over OS/2. Yes, Microsoft in the 1990s were ruthless and even bundled Internet Explorer with Windows 95 OSR and Windows 98 that got them investigated by the DOJ for antitrust issues.
- blitzd 10y ago
  > The Microsoft brand has been completely reborn in the eyes of developers over the past few years. The lows of 2007-2010 seem a distant memory. Maybe in the eyes of some developers - for many of us who are still dependent on MS products that haven't been getting much attention (SQL Server and it's related BI tools), the lows are still getting lower. Sure, there's improvements in the overall functionality (with SQL 2016) - but trying to get bugs fixed (or even acknowledged) for anyone but a fortune 500 company is still an exercise in futility. Trying to get support via MSDN forums (as is a purported benefit of our multiple MSDN developer licenses) is a joke. We're dropping any MS related tech that we can, because frankly it feels like we're throwing money away when we could be getting the same (or, most likely better) support using open source technologies instead. I have connect issues that have been open and unacknowledged for going on 4 years now. Meanwhile, I have posted bug reports to open source projects on github and received responses back with 5 minutes of hitting submit. VS Code is great, don't get me wrong - but the experience with that project is a far cry from the products we've PAID MS to use and develop with.
  - blahi 10y ago
    What exactly open source technologies will give you feature parity and better support than microsoft's BI stack?
    - JohnnyConatus 10y ago
      Would love an answer on this one. I implemented the MSFT BI stack into a product for no other reason than we were already using MSFT. However, each time I look at OSS BI stacks I feel like I'm losing out on something.
    - blitzd 10y ago
      There's nothing that's really comparable at the moment, so far as I know. It's not one of the pieces we've been able to replace.
  - johnnyb9 10y ago
    Reminds me of the 5 year old bug to fix Intellisense completion mode in SSMS, finally fixed in 2016.
- skilic 10y ago
  I wonder what I'd get from my Surface RT that I paid more than a pretty penny for a few years back. Would be nice to "trade-in" for a decent discount on a Surface Pro 3/4.
insightful 10y ago
They update quickly because they know every trivial update will be a front-page on Reddit as a bunch of Microsoft boosters try to shout "SEE WE'RE HERE TOO!" It's pretty lame.

by jagermo 10y ago

pavlov 10y ago

The team Microsoft really seems to be invested in this free code editor. It's great strategic marketing. Making Visual Studio Code costs a fraction of what Microsoft spent on the Surface RT marketing campaign (as an example), and the benefits to their image are much more powerful and long-lasting. The Microsoft brand has been completely reborn in the eyes of developers over the past few years. The lows of 2007-2010 seem a distant memory.

laurentdc 10y ago
> It's great strategic marketing. Yeah, it's clear they're trying to "save face" in front of the open source community and become more developer-friendly (Bash on Windows too). But I must say, ten years ago when I had to choose between Java and C# for a SCADA project I picked the latter because of the Visual Studio IDE which was already well above the competition (think Eclipse/NetBeans back then). I'm glad they've brought it back for all open source software.
- mmgutz 10y ago
  I don't think it's so much "sav[ing] face" as much as it is getting the message out they fully support open source. The long term play is azure which is their big money maker. 1/3 of deploys on azure (IIRC) use linux images. Our startup got a huge credit to host on azure and we don't use .NET nor Windows. Competition is good.
sremani 10y ago
They are doing it the hardway, every one is entitled to earn their accolades including Microsoft, Google or Apple. Is it marketing, change of culture or otherwise, given the increase of footprint of their editor they are providing real value to developers on non-windows platform in spades.
jeresuikkila 10y ago
I wish more companies understood the value of great products that people love to use as marketing instead of spending money on advertising.
- slackstation 10y ago
  > I wish more companies understood the value of great products that people love to use as marketing instead of spending money on advertising. Companies understand. It's just that making something that people truely like is expensive, takes a long time and is risky. Marketing (in many instances) is cheaper, faster and less risky. Also, it's something you can do with 3rd party providers who do this for many companies. In other words, it's a business problem that can be solved by basically throwing money at it. Building something usually takes insight into the customer, knowledge on how to build the thing that people want and ongoing work at maintaining that thing that makes people so happy. All of this takes a great amount of internal talent, skill and leadership. If the wrong few key people leave, if the corporate culture changes, if the winds of the stock market and profits shift, this can go away. It's much, much easier to just rebrand your way into people's good graces.
mattmanser 10y ago
I don't get the end game though, what is the strategy? Ultimately, if you end up using Linux .net core + typescript, they seem to be killing off visual studio, IIS, Windows Server, etc. For what? Azure, glorified hosting that might end up a race to the bottom vs AWS & GCE? Selling SQL server licences? I just don't get the strategy. I'm genuinely asking, where is this actually taking them apart from burning a bunch of money making free tools? Why are they making .Net core?
- pavlov 10y ago
  Maybe the end game is the same as it always was: find the next profitable thing and leap on it? Microsoft is opportunistic. They were a major UNIX vendor in the '80s (Xenix); then they were married to IBM with OS/2; until one day they weren't. Microsoft has traditionally been the one to get the hate for this because their moves were so brash in the '90s... But the other big tech companies aren't any better. Apple is a friend of open source and standards only when it happens to suit them. Google does lots of open source but they want to be the ones holding the reins at all tiems (Blink, Android, etc.) Facebook spends a lot of money on looking smart and friendly to developers so that we'd ignore the Orwellian pile of information they hold on most people. Etc.
  - orionblastar 10y ago
    Microsoft in the 1990s, had tried to find a replacement for DOS partnering up with IBM. Commodore had the Amiga, Atari had the Atari ST, and Apple had the Macintosh and their operating systems were better than DOS. So out of an advanced DOS project came OS/2 and then the GUI for OS/2. IBM had their own OS/2 and Microsoft had their own OS/2 as well. Microsoft was working on Microsoft OS/2 NT 3.0 when they broke off from IBM, and then renamed it Microsoft Windows NT 3.1 using the Windows 3.X GUI. Microsoft also pushed Windows 3.0 and 3.1 that loaded on top of DOS. IBM had OS/2 2.0 that had WIN-OS2 to run 16 bit Windows apps. Then companies quit making OS/2 native apps and made 16 bit Windows apps instead because OS/2 could run them as did Windows. The big blow to IBM was Microsoft's Windows Tax to OEMs, that is based on how many computers they made, even if Windows was not installed on the new PCs. So if someone wanted to install IBM's OS/2 or Next's Nextstep for Intel chips, or BeOS for Intel, they still had to pay Microsoft the Windows tax. This forced OEMs to preinstall Windows, because they already paid for it with the Windows tax. So it was a combination of OS/2 running 16 bit Windows programs and companies not wanting to make an OS/2 native version, and Microsoft marketing Windows to be used instead of OS/2 by bundling it with every OEM PC sold, that stabbed IBM in the back over OS/2. Yes, Microsoft in the 1990s were ruthless and even bundled Internet Explorer with Windows 95 OSR and Windows 98 that got them investigated by the DOJ for antitrust issues.
blitzd 10y ago
> The Microsoft brand has been completely reborn in the eyes of developers over the past few years. The lows of 2007-2010 seem a distant memory. Maybe in the eyes of some developers - for many of us who are still dependent on MS products that haven't been getting much attention (SQL Server and it's related BI tools), the lows are still getting lower. Sure, there's improvements in the overall functionality (with SQL 2016) - but trying to get bugs fixed (or even acknowledged) for anyone but a fortune 500 company is still an exercise in futility. Trying to get support via MSDN forums (as is a purported benefit of our multiple MSDN developer licenses) is a joke. We're dropping any MS related tech that we can, because frankly it feels like we're throwing money away when we could be getting the same (or, most likely better) support using open source technologies instead. I have connect issues that have been open and unacknowledged for going on 4 years now. Meanwhile, I have posted bug reports to open source projects on github and received responses back with 5 minutes of hitting submit. VS Code is great, don't get me wrong - but the experience with that project is a far cry from the products we've PAID MS to use and develop with.
- blahi 10y ago
  What exactly open source technologies will give you feature parity and better support than microsoft's BI stack?
  - JohnnyConatus 10y ago
    Would love an answer on this one. I implemented the MSFT BI stack into a product for no other reason than we were already using MSFT. However, each time I look at OSS BI stacks I feel like I'm losing out on something.
  - blitzd 10y ago
    There's nothing that's really comparable at the moment, so far as I know. It's not one of the pieces we've been able to replace.
- johnnyb9 10y ago
  Reminds me of the 5 year old bug to fix Intellisense completion mode in SSMS, finally fixed in 2016.
skilic 10y ago
I wonder what I'd get from my Surface RT that I paid more than a pretty penny for a few years back. Would be nice to "trade-in" for a decent discount on a Surface Pro 3/4.

insightful 10y ago

They update quickly because they know every trivial update will be a front-page on Reddit as a bunch of Microsoft boosters try to shout "SEE WE'RE HERE TOO!" It's pretty lame.