21 ms·

Visual Studio for Mac

664 points by runesoerensen 10y ago

tscs37 10y ago
Great News. The only thing missing is Linux support, then I'm sold on VS (again).
- btzll 10y ago
  Since it's based on MonoDevelop/Xamarin you should expect it soon.
  - Recoveringhobo 10y ago
    Really? Awesome! What's Microsoft's game plan with this? Are they trying to drive more people towards Azure?
    - kossmoboleat 10y ago
      Yes, that was also the analysis for the recent Linux layer in Windows. At the same time Powershell was ported which allows Windows admins to continue to use their tools.
  - Kipters 10y ago
    I wouldn't hold my breath
    - blahi 10y ago
      because...?
      - Kipters 10y ago
        This is mostly focused on Xamarin (IMHO they're phasing out Xamarin Studio), and Visual Studio Code already offers a good .NET Core developer experience
    - ygra 10y ago
      I'd guess OS X is an easier target to test the waters than Linux for now.
  - pritambaral 10y ago
    So we were told when Xamarin was bought by Microsoft and Xamarin Studio made free. I just wanted to be able to make Android apps on Xamarin from my Linux laptop. Miguel de Icaza said on a reddit AMA they were already using MonoDevelop with Xamarin Android SDK internally, and would be releasing it. Till date I cannot find anything Android related in MonoDevelop (or its available Add-ins).
BipolarElsa 10y ago
fucking FINALLY
netheril96 10y ago
No C++ support, I suppose.
- santaclaus 10y ago
  I was really excited until I realized that. A C# IDE on macOS is cool, but damn I would kill for a better C++ experience on Apple. Xcode is ok, but it's code completion is buggy and there is no refactoring support... I've heard CLion is cool but I'm kind of poor and don't have the spare cash for it.
  - stevedonovan 10y ago
    Eclipse CDT has definitely getting better - quite happy with it now for C++ projects. Code completion and navigation works well and you can just import a makefile-based project.
  - erikbye 10y ago
    I really like CLion, you should check it out, there is a 30-day trial. Qt Creator is also a decent IDE for C++, which is free (the Qt Open Source version).
  - satysin 10y ago
    CLion is like $8/month. That is the price of a couple of coffees. I think it is worth that IMHO.
    - douche 10y ago
      Pricing for developer tools tend to look more reasonable when you amortize it over the year and put it in Starbucks terms. Same thing for hardware upgrades. There's no real excuse for not investing in good tools.
      - satysin 10y ago
        Indeed. Even the full JetBrains package is good value even for a hobbyist programmer. People spend thousands on fishing rods and golf clubs for their hobbies yet when it comes to software they scoff at anything over £30. Having said that I think a community edition of CLion will be needed in the not too distant future as the competition in the C++ IDE space is improving with VS now free and Qt Creator.
chenster 10y ago
I will definitely consider it as long as it's not vendor locked.
- moljacsharp 10y ago
  I believe MS claims they are "open source 1st" right now. Everything made by Xamarin was opensourced in 2016-04/2016-05 under MIT license, so it cannot be vendor locked anymore.
relics443 10y ago
Microsoft just continues to amaze. Never thought I'd see this...
cocoadev2000 10y ago
Its a shame the UI is not Cocoa but GTK. =(
- 0xFFC 10y ago
  It is also quite funny, think about it, in some situation maybe Microsoft will end up contributing directly to Gtk ! Unbelievable.
tonyedgecombe 10y ago
For a moment I got all excited and thought they had ported WPF to OS/X.
- cocoadev2000 10y ago
  Awesome Idea. No market.
  - tonyedgecombe 10y ago
    There are still people doing desktop development, not as many as web but it hasn't completely gone away. Sadly we are being ignored.
  - miguelrochefort 10y ago
    Not even for mobile apps?
    - Kipters 10y ago
      That's basically what they're doing with Xamarin.Forms
- willtim 10y ago
  I get the impression that WPF is pretty much on life support.
  - NicoJuicy 10y ago
    It's merged to Xaml not? And what do you want more for WPF? PS. According to me it was difficult to port the Graphic part of WPF to Linux/Mac.
    - ygra 10y ago
      XAML is just a way of writing object graphs in XML. It is not tied to WPF or anything (heck, we use it to represent user data and style information within GraphML). And yes, XAML is used by more than WPF at this point (Silverlight, UWP, and possibly more).
chenster 10y ago
Where's the download for Preview? It's not in https://www.visualstudio.com/downloads/ https://www.visualstudio.com/downloads/
- runesoerensen 10y ago
  Probably won't be available before the Connect conference next week (November 16-18). > At Connect(); in November, Microsoft is launching a preview of Visual Studio for Mac.
  - biehl 10y ago
    Ouch. Sounds likely, but I went looking too :(
0x0 10y ago
Can this cross-compile (and perhaps remote debug) win32 and wpf applications, for example targeting a windows VM? That would be pretty awesome!
- Kipters 10y ago
  I don't think so, it's still a MonoDevelop fork
  - 0x0 10y ago
    Ah ok. So now there are three (four?) completely different products branded as "Visual Studio"? 1. The original, real Visual Studio for Windows, 2. Visual Studio Code (a fork of atom?), 3. Visual Studio for Mac, (4. Visual Studio Express?)
    - Kipters 10y ago
      Yes (VS Express is still Visual Studio for Windows, just a different build config)
    - tracker1 10y ago
      VS Code uses electron, but is not a fork of atom... It's actually very fast and fairly nice.. the ui started similar to atom, though I wish I could take back my request for tabs support and go back to the non tabs ui. This Mac version is a rebadge of Xamerin Studio, with some redesign and tooling improvements. VS Express is really a stripped down version of VS, and the community edition is usually a better option.
  - int_19h 10y ago
    I don't see why it would preclude it from cross-compiling WPF apps. WPF is just a bunch of assemblies - they only run on Windows, but if you're building your own code against them, only the metadata in them needs to be loaded by the compiler. Of course, you'd still need the assemblies - they could be extracted from .NET redist, but it's not easy.
jpalomaki 10y ago
Interesting, but I can also see some risks with their approach. Now they have three different Visual Studios with completely different technology stacks. 1) Visual Studio for Windows (C++, I assume?) 2) Visual Studio Code (Javascript, Atom) 3) Visual Studio for Mac (C#)
- Kipters 10y ago
  Visual Studio for Windows is written in C# with WPF, but your point is still valid since they are two different codebases
  - ygra 10y ago
    Visual Studio for Windows is mostly C++, plus a lot of other things. Heck, there's JavaScript in there, too.
    - Kipters 10y ago
      It used to, they moved to WPF with Visual Studio 2010, now it's mostly WPF with some legacy parts that are still in C++
      - satysin 10y ago
        AFAIK the editor (shell) is WPF (C#?) but the internals are still mostly C++/Win32.
        Kipters 10y ago
        Seems plausible, I don't know enough details to argue this.
        int_19h 10y ago
        The shell still has a lot of C++ in it, yes (but also a lot of C#). But the shell is a relatively small part of the entire IDE - the bulk of it is the extensions that actually provide support for various languages and technologies. Those also have some C++, either as legacy code, or because the team just preferred it, but by now C# is definitely the majority of it, and it keeps trending in that direction. A lot of it can be very non-obvious and defying common sense. For example, if you take VS 2013 (pre-Roslyn), the C++ project system was written entirely in C#, while the C# project system was written mostly in C++.
SiVal 10y ago
So Microsoft is treating the Mac more seriously as a professional platform while Apple is treating it less seriously? I'm not saying this in a snarky way; I mean it literally as a change of corporate strategies in both companies. Microsoft seems to be saying, If you are a pro mainly using the Mac for professional work, we want to do a better job of empowering you, and Apple seems to be saying, If you are a pro mainly using the Mac for professional work, you need to get used to the idea that we are deemphasizing your market--no hard feelings.
- cm2187 10y ago
  People aren't going to do development on a tablet or a smartphone anytime soon.
  - rimantas 10y ago
    While I agree with you there is that thing for trying Swift on iPad.
    - Kyro38 10y ago
      It's a toy for learning, nothing more.
      - adav 10y ago
        It could be an MVP.
        Cthulhu_ 10y ago
        It is, for learning basic Swift. For developing you want to use a setup that allows you to handle thousands if not hundreds of thousands of lines of code. A single-process touch interface isn't that, I think.
  - intoverflow2 10y ago
    Don't speak too soon. "Why would you buy a PC anymore?" - Tim Cook on the iPad Pro launch. Don't be surprised if XCode for iPad Pro is a thing soon. It's becoming clear he sees iPads as the future of computing, it's all he uses personally and developing it's own apps is one of the last things it actually can't do.
alex4Zero 10y ago
It is based on Xamarin Studio. I work with XS on OSX last 3 years. Unfortunatelly, Xamarin Studio has a lot of issues with performance, refactoring, it crashes from time to time. I think it will be better to wait for release of Project Rider. At least EAP is already available
- simooooo 10y ago
  Waiting for it to bring core support then I'll be trying it
  - moljacsharp 10y ago
    Core support (ASP.net Core) was added more than year ago in the form of addin. Other project types were added recently and I haven't tried them yet, so I would not like to speculate. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/mt790182.aspx https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/mt790182.aspx
cm2187 10y ago
No word on VB.net. I presume MS is trying to quietly phase it out.
- dimgl 10y ago
  Good riddance.
- ocdtrekkie 10y ago
  Given that "Even core features such as C# editing, Xamarin.iOS, Xamarin.Android and ASP.NET Core are implemented as extensions", I assume it'd be relatively easy for them to implement, especially since VB and C# effectively compile the same. Presumably, C#, Android, and iOS are their top priorities to support, things like VB are less so, but could be added later.
- Kipters 10y ago
  They said it's based on Roslyn, so it should support VB.net. In the current release of Xamarin Studio for Mac, VB is supported in GTK and console applications, while Xamarin targets only support C# and F#
WhiteHat1 10y ago
Do existing Visual Studio extensions work on Visual Studio for Mac? (Resharper, Typemock, IncrediBuild, etc. etc. etc.)
wkoszek 10y ago
I can't recognise this new Microsoft. It's basically as if this was a new company wrt. Open Source and competing.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- static_noise 10y ago
  It's just another corporation doing its thing to stay in business. They ran into a dead end and changed the strategy. They can change it again. Utimately, money decides.
- B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago
  They now want to be Oracle in place of ORCL.
  - tracker1 10y ago
    Except if rather deal with MS's software... Everytime I touch anything from Oracle, I plan on a week of frustration...
maykr 10y ago
So as for now it is the rebranded and polished Xamarin Studio - hopefully, they have improved it's usability as in the past it was pretty lacking compared to VS 2013/2015
- alex4Zero 10y ago
  I think Microsoft will end-of-life Xamarin Studio and will convert it to Visual Studio brand with just support of OSX and Linux
  - Kipters 10y ago
    I wouldn't bet my money on a Linux release
    - Arcaire 10y ago
      Really? They seem to be opening up quite a bit more with regards to Linux (.NET Core, WSL, etc).
      - Kipters 10y ago
        To me it looks like they are giving people running linux the minimum tools to run that stuff, but at the same time not giving enough to encourage devs to stay on Linux (WSL goes in the opposite direction, its purpose is to help devs move to Windows). But this is all IMHO, take it with a grain of salt. By the way, since it's based off MonoDevelop, you can just use it con Linux.
        codeka 10y ago
        I've been using Visual Studio Code on Linux to do some TypeScript development. It's actually pretty nice, and works really well in a general JavaScript environment (npm, etc).
      - yulaow 10y ago
        We are waiting since years for a simple xamarin studio for linux, even just supporting only ubuntu and letting the other distro to manage the packages for them... The reality is it seems they don't want at all to bring Xamarin on Linux, sadly Miguel was very clear about it in the years.
SakiWatanabe 10y ago
So will it be possible to develop cross platform GUI App using visual studio / ms native frameworks?
- ZenoArrow 10y ago
  Let's put this in context. At the moment the main thing that's happened is Xamarin Studio got rebranded as Visual Studio for Mac. If you look up the features of Xamarin Studio you'll have your answer, at least based on the current features.
- tracker1 10y ago
  You can reuse a lot via vs/xs if you like C#. There's support for UWP, iOS and Android, as well as libraries for GTk and Mac. I'd be more inclined to use react and Redux with electron. With Cordova to bridge to mobile. Really do like VS Code. Just my two cents.
flomo 10y ago
Anyone else reminded of Visual C++ for Macintosh circa early 1990s?
- pjmlp 10y ago
  Yes, I surely do.
- opless 10y ago
  Indeed. smiles wryly
jmsmistral 10y ago
Great... Microsoft pushing their bloated sack of crap outside the confines of their abomination of an OS
BoysenberryPi 10y ago
I'm glad to see more Microsoft dev tools on other platforms but don't lose sight of why this is happening. Microsoft is shifting their business to the cloud. They make their money off Azure and other services. In other words, they are making their money mainly off of developers now and its in their best interest to get on the good side of devs which is why they suddenly have a vested interest in open sourcing tools and helping Mac/Linux. Given the love and lavish praise I see heaped on Microsoft in every thread they do something it's clearly working. I'm not saying don't praise them when they do something good but don't be deceived into thinking they are doing it out of good faith.
- ocdtrekkie 10y ago
  No business operates out of "good faith". For a long time, people treated Google like it was a nonprofit with all of the talk about making the world a better place, rather than recognizing it as, first and foremost, an ad company. As you point out, making people like your company is just good business, and successful businesses do that.
- madeofpalk 10y ago
  > don't lose sight of why this is happening. Microsoft is shifting their business to the cloud. Why is this a bad thing? Microsoft is a company, they exist to make money. A huge new market for them is 'Cloud' and they're doing everything they can to make that as appealing as possible.
  - chillacy 10y ago
    If you want to be the tallest tree in the forest, you can take in the most water and sunlight to be taller than everyone else, or you can chop down all the other trees so you're the only one standing. Back when they made money from selling operating systems, they were definitely doing some tree chopping with some of their practices.
  - nicky0 10y ago
    Did they say it was bad?
- 10y ago
tangue 10y ago
Visual Studio for python is really great. Any hints the Python tools will be ported/compatible with the Mac version ?
- jeffwass 10y ago
  I'm curious if you've tried Visual Studio Code for Python on Mac? I've heard good things about it, and just this past weekend tried it out, but couldn't even get a simple Hello World working on it for Python. I installed the common Python extension for it (Don Jayamanne's), but seems like it couldn't Link with the Python toolset. Ie, I could edit scripts with Python highlighting and autocomplete, but couldn't get them to execute. I gave up after an hour of trying and went back to pycharm. I'd be interested in giving it another go, but worried if I'm needing to bang my head just for a Hello World, how bad it might get later on.
  - antfarm 10y ago
    I first tried VS Code for Python programming on the Mac last weekend, made it my main Python editor/ide by now. I found it extremely straightforward to set up, esp. the debugger is usable in a very intuitive way. Have you set the configuration setting for the python executable? "python.pythonPath": "/usr/bin/python", https://github.com/DonJayamanne/pythonVSCode/wiki/Python-Path-and-Version#manual-configuration https://github.com/DonJayamanne/pythonVSCode/wiki/Python-Pat...
    - antfarm 10y ago
      Another way to set the Python interpreter is described here: https://github.com/DonJayamanne/pythonVSCode/wiki/Miscellaneous#select-an-interpreter https://github.com/DonJayamanne/pythonVSCode/wiki/Miscellane...
  - tangue 10y ago
    I didn't manage too. And I'm a bit confused since it seems simple according to other posts in this thread.
erikbye 10y ago
... and hell froze
HNSucksAss 10y ago
I was excited until this: "It’s all powered by the C# language you know and love" I'm pleased with MS's new cross-platform efforts and liked their dev tools a lot in the past, but that's an obnoxious, presumptuous, and laughable statement. I've been a professional developer on both Windows, Mac, and iOS and have never written a line of C# code. Swift is open-source, so why not migrate to that? Why should we learn C# instead (and that's a real question, not snark)?
delegate 10y ago
This is nice of course, but without C++ support it has very little appeal to me. I don't want to learn C# to write iOS apps. I might learn it just for fun, but I will continue writing the iOS apps with Swift/Objective-C and C++. C++ support is the weak spot of Xcode and so far I haven't found a suitable IDE for C++, except maybe Qt Creator and several IntelliJ-based IDEs, which are ok but not on par with Visual Studio on Windows. I keep a windows machine around mainly for writing C++ code (and games!).
- philliphaydon 10y ago
  Why don't you want to learn c# for iOS / Android development?
  - Cthulhu_ 10y ago
    It's not iOS / Android development, it's Xamarin development. Not really the same thing.
    - philliphaydon 10y ago
      It's still c#...
  - delegate 10y ago
    Because the officially supported language for iOS development is Swift (and ObjC) and Xcode is quite good for iOS development. I also like Swift a lot. It's a modern language with lots of powerful features and also very practical. My current project involves a lot of context switching between Swift, C++ and Objective-C++ and I miss a lot of Swift's features in C++.. For some obscure reason I also enjoy Objective-C++ quite a bit, it's a weird mixture of insanity but it feels good ;). I don't know a lot about C#, I think it must be a good language, albeit older with more historical baggage, but even so I wouldn't use it instead of Swift for iOS development. I mean, why ? For Android development - maybe - I'm not too fond of Java, but on iOS/Mac - I will stick with Swift thank you.
- pjmlp 10y ago
partycoder 10y ago
It's a rebranded Xamarin Studio (MonoDevelop). I wonder if it will continue to support Android, or if there will be a Linux release.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
Hydraulix989 10y ago
This is absolutely amazing. C# has always been a great language, except the .NET ecosystem (sans Mono) has always revolved around Windows only. Next up, when is VS for Linux?
- mb_72 10y ago
  Indeed. I've been using XS on Mac and VS on PC to build a cross-platform product - with shared code for 'core' calculations + view model stuff and dedicated GUI pieces for each platform - for a couple of years now, and I've been sometimes very frustrated by the restrictions of XS compared to VS; it made the Mac side of things much slower to develop. This, and other recent moves by Microsoft with respect to Xamarin, have made me happy (and, yes, somewhat relieved), that I 'bet the company' on this kind of architecture. There doesn't appear to much demand for our product on Linux - it's targeted towards quite a conservative and on-tech market - but Linux support would also be very welcome.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  I guess they will only support it remotely, at least in C++ context. https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/vcblog/2016/06/07/visual-c-for-linux-updates/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/vcblog/2016/06/07/visual-c-...
kriro 10y ago
Most interesting part for me: """For the functional programmers among you, it includes excellent F# support, powered by the same F# compiler used in Visual Studio.""" I've heard that F# is great from multiple people I trust a lot (and a quick cross check showed it does indeed look very cool) so I might give it a try once this is released. I do some C# development (Unity Engine stuff) on my Powerbook so this is also good news (MonoDevelop is fine but I'll obviously test VS for Mac)
- mcintyre1994 10y ago
  F# is well supported by Visual Studio Code (with the Ionide plugin) too if you want to try it sooner.
- wluu 10y ago
  This will essentially be a rebranded Xamarin Studio and tweaked to look more like VS for Windows. And Xamarin is basically based off MonoDevelop.
- te_platt 10y ago
  I started converting some c# code to f# as a learning exercise about a month ago. After a few fits and starts, something clicked and I am amazed at how much I like it. I have been following the articles on "F# for fun and profit" and highly recommend it.
- hellofunk 10y ago
  OCaml guys don't seem to like F#, as its implementation differs from many in the FP world believe is "correct", but any form of FP on .NET is a good thing, I think.
pjmlp 10y ago
This feels like traveling back in time. I might have still some magazine lost somewhere about Visual Studion and MFC for Mac OS.
rl3 10y ago
>At its heart, Visual Studio for Mac is a macOS counterpart of the Windows version of Visual Studio. Does it have a monolithic install and update process that's essentially a slow, bloated black box? That's my main turn-off with Visual Studio on Windows, and even more so with Windows itself. As soon as Microsoft figures out efficient installation and updates via CLI without the need to reboot, they'll dominate the developer space (and perhaps server market, where reboots are even more problematic).
- Permit 10y ago
  A smaller and componentized install was a major focus for Visual Studio 2017. There's some more detail here: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/visualstudio/2016/08/22/visual-studio-15-preview-4/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/visualstudio/2016/08/22/vis... Smallest install is 500MB .NET/C# install is ~3GB I also believe you won't have to reboot with most installs.
  - rl3 10y ago
    Nice, I totally wasn't aware of that. It's good to see VS finally headed down the right path in that regard.
    - simooooo 10y ago
      At a presentation at NDC or something Scott Hanselman did a bit where he pretended that he'd forgotten to install VS. Then he proceeded to install it live in the presentation, in less than a minute I think.
- alkonaut 10y ago
  The statement "macOS counterpart of the Windows version of Visual Studio" is essentially false as far as I can see, the core of VS for mac is Xamarin Studio which is not Visual Studio. Visual Studio for windows has two different "cores": the massive old C++/COM-based application used since forever, and the newer subsystems Such as The language subsystem (For C# and VB) Roslyn, which is .NET based. Xamarin Studio could be using Roslyn, but the app isn't based on the same platform as VS itself is. Since it is at it's core a newer and much smaller application, it shouldn't have to have any of the setup issues that VS has (just like VS code doesn't).
boraturan 10y ago
Sooner than expected
shadowmint 10y ago
Interesting move. I wonder how this will affect Rider (the new jetbrains C# IDE based on intellij, currently in EAP) and if they will continue to invest in Resharper for multiple platforms, or focus effort on bringing the resharper functionality into Rider. ...I also can't help but think this sort of indicates that the C# tooling in visual studio code is being reconsidered; which seems reasonable, I was always disappointed by it.
jbverschoor 10y ago
oh wow.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
megablast 10y ago
They already have Xamarin Studio.
jsingleton 10y ago
Good news and great timing! I had a four part blog post series on Xamarin.Forms and .NET on a Mac planned for this week. Starting with this introductory post today: https://unop.uk/cross-platform-native-mobile-app-development-options https://unop.uk/cross-platform-native-mobile-app-development...
piyush_soni 10y ago
Now only if they release a Linux version! All the existing IDEs and Editors are not even close to Visual Studio there IMO.
drej 10y ago
The big question is - can I use it with Intel Fortran? (I am, sadly, 100% serious.)
- moljacsharp 10y ago
  Monodevelop/Xamarin.Studio have really simple addin system and writing addin to support anything shouldn't be big problem. It is a lot easier than Visual Studio Extensibility system.
m4tthumphrey 10y ago
What is happening? Seriously. Microsoft releasing software to aid Mac users and Apple releasing hardware to hinder Mac users.
ldev 10y ago
Did the hell just froze over? That is one thing I never expected. .NET open source and officialy supported on *nix, some version of SQL Server on Linux, cross platform Visual Studio Code editor, now Visual Studio for macOS...
toothbrush 10y ago
Wow, i would've loved to see the look on people's faces if in, say, 2002, they could've glimpsed this headline from the future. Nobody would've believed it. How things change!
Bytes 10y ago
Is anyone else getting "the page you requested cannot be found"?
jonathanstrange 10y ago
This is very good in general. Now if they only could make a version for Linux and get rid of this whole "application barrier" thinking. Microsoft would probably be the only company right now who could fight the walled garden, developer lock-in approach that continues to destroy personal computing. But if the past holds any indication for the future, then I'm not holding my breath for it. They'll probably just use the Mac version to introduce slight incompatibilities or make the Mac versions of existing products kind of slower and buggier than the Windows versions. :(
Mtinie 10y ago
The posted link is now returning a 404 (as of 7:30AM EDT). "We're sorry, the page you requested cannot be found."
chocks 10y ago
link seems to be down - "We're sorry, the page you requested cannot be found"
- Aldo_MX 10y ago
  https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Vk2On-9psscJ:https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/mt790182.aspx https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Vk2On-...
- kenrick95 10y ago
  I think it was an accidental post ahead of official announcement at Connect(); event on 19 November. Google cached version: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Vk2On-9psscJ:https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/mt790182.aspx https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Vk2On-...
  - chocks 10y ago
    cool. Thanks!
donatj 10y ago
As a lover of VB.Net I am perennially disappointed with how little they seem to care about porting it solidly to other platforms or in general for that matter.
anupshinde 10y ago
This is great news! I was a c# developer for many years and absolutely loved it. But then I gave up the Microsoft ecosystem 7 years back just because it felt like a lock-in and also a bit backward compared to non-MS tech. But in the past one year, Microsoft has got me in again: a. Moved to TypeScript from JavaScript (including my hobby projects) b. Moved to VSCode from Sublime c. C# is a great language and I just hate Java. Hope this and more steps make it easy to use C# and deploy in non-MS environments.
- Clubber 10y ago
  C# is a lot different today than it was 7 years ago. You might be in for a shock. The nice thing is you can develop it today as you did 7 years ago, but with heavy use of lambdas and var, it reads almost like another language.
  - littlegreenb18 10y ago
    7 years ago was 2009. var, lambdas, and linq were already in pretty heavy use by then. The biggest change since then is the dynamic language runtime, but I don't really see that used much in c#.
  - MichaelGG 10y ago
    Those improvements came out 9 years ago.
king_magic 10y ago
Soooo... the link was working, now it's not, someone from Microsoft jumped the gun on posting this?
threepipeproblm 10y ago
Is it just me or did this article disappear?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- gbtxg 10y ago
  Same here. I get > We're sorry, the page you requested cannot be found.
  - threepipeproblm 10y ago
    Same feeling I used to get when the recorded voice on the phone line said "We're sorry". The feeling that no one was actually sorry, except the person getting the message.
a1exus 10y ago
I'm getting page cannot be found..
xadhix 10y ago
We're sorry, the page you requested cannot be found. :(
- jmcomets 10y ago
  Same issue here, even on their "Downloads" page [1] it isn't shown available for Mac. [1]: https://www.visualstudio.com/downloads https://www.visualstudio.com/downloads
- hajile 10y ago
  Someone published a little too early
vikas0380 10y ago
Broken Link
- DanHulton 10y ago
  Cached version: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Vk2On-9psscJ:https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/mt790182.aspx+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Vk2On-...
Jaruzel 10y ago
Page has gone. Other people (buried in the comments) have posted the google cache of it, but here is it again for visibility: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Vk2On-9psscJ:https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/mt790182.aspx https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Vk2On-... Maybe a Feature Request for HN, would be for a 'alt' link (that mods update) as part of the clickables under the post title?
- jsingleton 10y ago
  Strange, not sure if this is a bug or if MS published too early and retracted it? Edit: Thanks for the tip BTW. I had linked to this from a blog post, but have now removed the dead link (https://unop.uk/cross-platform-native-mobile-app-development-options https://unop.uk/cross-platform-native-mobile-app-development...).
  - FLGMwt 10y ago
    Almost definitely the latter. It was tagged `Connect()` which is a MS conference happening later this week. It's probably going to be announced there.
    - jsingleton 10y ago
      Ah OK, it was probably under embargo and got posted early by mistake. I've been to Connect(); before in a time zone ahead of the US and nothing gets announced in the morning until the US wakes up and the embargo is lifted. Edit: FYI Connect(); is November 16th-18th starting 9:45am EST https://connectevent.microsoft.com https://connectevent.microsoft.com
- robert_tweed 10y ago
  Since popular HN submissions will often hug the site to death, a nice feature would be to automatically check the top 3 caches (archive.org, Coral, Google) immediately on submission, before the page goes live on HN. If the cache doesn't 404, the content could be quickly parsed to check it matches the submission and, if so, automatically include the cache link at the top of the submission page. This would save people manually posting these all the time and would, in many cases prevent the case where it becomes impossible to retrieve a cache, because nobody thought to access one before the slashdot effect occurs. Or, as in this case it seems, the article is pulled. It would also be nice if, 24-48 hours after submission, the only cache link remaining is archive.org (if they have the page), so the content is retained permanently as-submitted. It's rare, but sometimes a page will be updated so the comments no longer make sense. It would also be nice to include a link history in the same area (have requested this before), in case the original submission is changed by the mod. Usually when this happens the notice is the top comment, but sometimes it isn't and the discussion can be quite confusing as a result.
utopcell 10y ago
That would be great news if the Microsoft c++ compiler was also part of it. Microsoft has added some amazing, in terms of performance, extensions to c++ lately, like coroutines support, that are not yet part of GCC or clang.
arenaninja 10y ago
This is a huge step forward, as this means I don't have to buy a new laptop just to work with C# (I've been waiting for Black Friday just for this). I wonder if this means SQL Server Express is coming as well, but that doesn't matter as much to me since I think Entity Framework takes care of working with a different database engine
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
jamesmp98 10y ago
So it's an updated version of Xamarin Studio... Not impressed.
homerguy69 10y ago
Broken link
- DanHulton 10y ago
  Cached version: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Vk2On-9psscJ:https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/mt790182.aspx+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Vk2On-...
sctb 10y ago
Since this was an accidental post (now removed) in advance of the actual announcement and release, we've buried this story. That way we can avoid treating the actual announcement as a duplicate when it happens.
kevinSuttle 10y ago
Ignoring the Apple vs MS thread: Can Mac users download this or not?
- Kipters 10y ago
  Not yet, wait for this wednesday

664 points by runesoerensen 10y ago

tscs37 10y ago

Great News. The only thing missing is Linux support, then I'm sold on VS (again).

btzll 10y ago
Since it's based on MonoDevelop/Xamarin you should expect it soon.
- Recoveringhobo 10y ago
  Really? Awesome! What's Microsoft's game plan with this? Are they trying to drive more people towards Azure?
  - kossmoboleat 10y ago
    Yes, that was also the analysis for the recent Linux layer in Windows. At the same time Powershell was ported which allows Windows admins to continue to use their tools.
- Kipters 10y ago
  I wouldn't hold my breath
  - blahi 10y ago
    because...?
    - Kipters 10y ago
      This is mostly focused on Xamarin (IMHO they're phasing out Xamarin Studio), and Visual Studio Code already offers a good .NET Core developer experience
  - ygra 10y ago
    I'd guess OS X is an easier target to test the waters than Linux for now.
- pritambaral 10y ago
  So we were told when Xamarin was bought by Microsoft and Xamarin Studio made free. I just wanted to be able to make Android apps on Xamarin from my Linux laptop. Miguel de Icaza said on a reddit AMA they were already using MonoDevelop with Xamarin Android SDK internally, and would be releasing it. Till date I cannot find anything Android related in MonoDevelop (or its available Add-ins).

BipolarElsa 10y ago

fucking FINALLY

netheril96 10y ago

No C++ support, I suppose.

santaclaus 10y ago
I was really excited until I realized that. A C# IDE on macOS is cool, but damn I would kill for a better C++ experience on Apple. Xcode is ok, but it's code completion is buggy and there is no refactoring support... I've heard CLion is cool but I'm kind of poor and don't have the spare cash for it.
- stevedonovan 10y ago
  Eclipse CDT has definitely getting better - quite happy with it now for C++ projects. Code completion and navigation works well and you can just import a makefile-based project.
- erikbye 10y ago
  I really like CLion, you should check it out, there is a 30-day trial. Qt Creator is also a decent IDE for C++, which is free (the Qt Open Source version).
- satysin 10y ago
  CLion is like $8/month. That is the price of a couple of coffees. I think it is worth that IMHO.
  - douche 10y ago
    Pricing for developer tools tend to look more reasonable when you amortize it over the year and put it in Starbucks terms. Same thing for hardware upgrades. There's no real excuse for not investing in good tools.
    - satysin 10y ago
      Indeed. Even the full JetBrains package is good value even for a hobbyist programmer. People spend thousands on fishing rods and golf clubs for their hobbies yet when it comes to software they scoff at anything over £30. Having said that I think a community edition of CLion will be needed in the not too distant future as the competition in the C++ IDE space is improving with VS now free and Qt Creator.

chenster 10y ago

I will definitely consider it as long as it's not vendor locked.

moljacsharp 10y ago
I believe MS claims they are "open source 1st" right now. Everything made by Xamarin was opensourced in 2016-04/2016-05 under MIT license, so it cannot be vendor locked anymore.

relics443 10y ago

Microsoft just continues to amaze. Never thought I'd see this...

cocoadev2000 10y ago

Its a shame the UI is not Cocoa but GTK. =(

0xFFC 10y ago
It is also quite funny, think about it, in some situation maybe Microsoft will end up contributing directly to Gtk ! Unbelievable.

tonyedgecombe 10y ago

For a moment I got all excited and thought they had ported WPF to OS/X.

cocoadev2000 10y ago
Awesome Idea. No market.
- tonyedgecombe 10y ago
  There are still people doing desktop development, not as many as web but it hasn't completely gone away. Sadly we are being ignored.
- miguelrochefort 10y ago
  Not even for mobile apps?
  - Kipters 10y ago
    That's basically what they're doing with Xamarin.Forms
willtim 10y ago
I get the impression that WPF is pretty much on life support.
- NicoJuicy 10y ago
  It's merged to Xaml not? And what do you want more for WPF? PS. According to me it was difficult to port the Graphic part of WPF to Linux/Mac.
  - ygra 10y ago
    XAML is just a way of writing object graphs in XML. It is not tied to WPF or anything (heck, we use it to represent user data and style information within GraphML). And yes, XAML is used by more than WPF at this point (Silverlight, UWP, and possibly more).

chenster 10y ago

Where's the download for Preview? It's not in https://www.visualstudio.com/downloads/ https://www.visualstudio.com/downloads/

runesoerensen 10y ago
Probably won't be available before the Connect conference next week (November 16-18). > At Connect(); in November, Microsoft is launching a preview of Visual Studio for Mac.
- biehl 10y ago
  Ouch. Sounds likely, but I went looking too :(

0x0 10y ago

Can this cross-compile (and perhaps remote debug) win32 and wpf applications, for example targeting a windows VM? That would be pretty awesome!

Kipters 10y ago
I don't think so, it's still a MonoDevelop fork
- 0x0 10y ago
  Ah ok. So now there are three (four?) completely different products branded as "Visual Studio"? 1. The original, real Visual Studio for Windows, 2. Visual Studio Code (a fork of atom?), 3. Visual Studio for Mac, (4. Visual Studio Express?)
  - Kipters 10y ago
    Yes (VS Express is still Visual Studio for Windows, just a different build config)
  - tracker1 10y ago
    VS Code uses electron, but is not a fork of atom... It's actually very fast and fairly nice.. the ui started similar to atom, though I wish I could take back my request for tabs support and go back to the non tabs ui. This Mac version is a rebadge of Xamerin Studio, with some redesign and tooling improvements. VS Express is really a stripped down version of VS, and the community edition is usually a better option.
- int_19h 10y ago
  I don't see why it would preclude it from cross-compiling WPF apps. WPF is just a bunch of assemblies - they only run on Windows, but if you're building your own code against them, only the metadata in them needs to be loaded by the compiler. Of course, you'd still need the assemblies - they could be extracted from .NET redist, but it's not easy.

jpalomaki 10y ago

Interesting, but I can also see some risks with their approach. Now they have three different Visual Studios with completely different technology stacks. 1) Visual Studio for Windows (C++, I assume?) 2) Visual Studio Code (Javascript, Atom) 3) Visual Studio for Mac (C#)

Kipters 10y ago
Visual Studio for Windows is written in C# with WPF, but your point is still valid since they are two different codebases
- ygra 10y ago
  Visual Studio for Windows is mostly C++, plus a lot of other things. Heck, there's JavaScript in there, too.
  - Kipters 10y ago
    It used to, they moved to WPF with Visual Studio 2010, now it's mostly WPF with some legacy parts that are still in C++
    - satysin 10y ago
      AFAIK the editor (shell) is WPF (C#?) but the internals are still mostly C++/Win32.
      - Kipters 10y ago
        Seems plausible, I don't know enough details to argue this.
      - int_19h 10y ago
        The shell still has a lot of C++ in it, yes (but also a lot of C#). But the shell is a relatively small part of the entire IDE - the bulk of it is the extensions that actually provide support for various languages and technologies. Those also have some C++, either as legacy code, or because the team just preferred it, but by now C# is definitely the majority of it, and it keeps trending in that direction. A lot of it can be very non-obvious and defying common sense. For example, if you take VS 2013 (pre-Roslyn), the C++ project system was written entirely in C#, while the C# project system was written mostly in C++.

SiVal 10y ago

So Microsoft is treating the Mac more seriously as a professional platform while Apple is treating it less seriously? I'm not saying this in a snarky way; I mean it literally as a change of corporate strategies in both companies. Microsoft seems to be saying, If you are a pro mainly using the Mac for professional work, we want to do a better job of empowering you, and Apple seems to be saying, If you are a pro mainly using the Mac for professional work, you need to get used to the idea that we are deemphasizing your market--no hard feelings.

cm2187 10y ago
People aren't going to do development on a tablet or a smartphone anytime soon.
- rimantas 10y ago
  While I agree with you there is that thing for trying Swift on iPad.
  - Kyro38 10y ago
    It's a toy for learning, nothing more.
    - adav 10y ago
      It could be an MVP.
      - Cthulhu_ 10y ago
        It is, for learning basic Swift. For developing you want to use a setup that allows you to handle thousands if not hundreds of thousands of lines of code. A single-process touch interface isn't that, I think.
- intoverflow2 10y ago
  Don't speak too soon. "Why would you buy a PC anymore?" - Tim Cook on the iPad Pro launch. Don't be surprised if XCode for iPad Pro is a thing soon. It's becoming clear he sees iPads as the future of computing, it's all he uses personally and developing it's own apps is one of the last things it actually can't do.

alex4Zero 10y ago

It is based on Xamarin Studio. I work with XS on OSX last 3 years. Unfortunatelly, Xamarin Studio has a lot of issues with performance, refactoring, it crashes from time to time. I think it will be better to wait for release of Project Rider. At least EAP is already available

simooooo 10y ago
Waiting for it to bring core support then I'll be trying it
- moljacsharp 10y ago
  Core support (ASP.net Core) was added more than year ago in the form of addin. Other project types were added recently and I haven't tried them yet, so I would not like to speculate. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/mt790182.aspx https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/mt790182.aspx

cm2187 10y ago

No word on VB.net. I presume MS is trying to quietly phase it out.

dimgl 10y ago
Good riddance.
ocdtrekkie 10y ago
Given that "Even core features such as C# editing, Xamarin.iOS, Xamarin.Android and ASP.NET Core are implemented as extensions", I assume it'd be relatively easy for them to implement, especially since VB and C# effectively compile the same. Presumably, C#, Android, and iOS are their top priorities to support, things like VB are less so, but could be added later.
Kipters 10y ago
They said it's based on Roslyn, so it should support VB.net. In the current release of Xamarin Studio for Mac, VB is supported in GTK and console applications, while Xamarin targets only support C# and F#

WhiteHat1 10y ago

Do existing Visual Studio extensions work on Visual Studio for Mac? (Resharper, Typemock, IncrediBuild, etc. etc. etc.)

wkoszek 10y ago

I can't recognise this new Microsoft. It's basically as if this was a new company wrt. Open Source and competing.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
static_noise 10y ago
It's just another corporation doing its thing to stay in business. They ran into a dead end and changed the strategy. They can change it again. Utimately, money decides.
B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago
They now want to be Oracle in place of ORCL.
- tracker1 10y ago
  Except if rather deal with MS's software... Everytime I touch anything from Oracle, I plan on a week of frustration...

maykr 10y ago

So as for now it is the rebranded and polished Xamarin Studio - hopefully, they have improved it's usability as in the past it was pretty lacking compared to VS 2013/2015

alex4Zero 10y ago
I think Microsoft will end-of-life Xamarin Studio and will convert it to Visual Studio brand with just support of OSX and Linux
- Kipters 10y ago
  I wouldn't bet my money on a Linux release
  - Arcaire 10y ago
    Really? They seem to be opening up quite a bit more with regards to Linux (.NET Core, WSL, etc).
    - Kipters 10y ago
      To me it looks like they are giving people running linux the minimum tools to run that stuff, but at the same time not giving enough to encourage devs to stay on Linux (WSL goes in the opposite direction, its purpose is to help devs move to Windows). But this is all IMHO, take it with a grain of salt. By the way, since it's based off MonoDevelop, you can just use it con Linux.
      - codeka 10y ago
        I've been using Visual Studio Code on Linux to do some TypeScript development. It's actually pretty nice, and works really well in a general JavaScript environment (npm, etc).
    - yulaow 10y ago
      We are waiting since years for a simple xamarin studio for linux, even just supporting only ubuntu and letting the other distro to manage the packages for them... The reality is it seems they don't want at all to bring Xamarin on Linux, sadly Miguel was very clear about it in the years.

SakiWatanabe 10y ago

So will it be possible to develop cross platform GUI App using visual studio / ms native frameworks?

ZenoArrow 10y ago
Let's put this in context. At the moment the main thing that's happened is Xamarin Studio got rebranded as Visual Studio for Mac. If you look up the features of Xamarin Studio you'll have your answer, at least based on the current features.
tracker1 10y ago
You can reuse a lot via vs/xs if you like C#. There's support for UWP, iOS and Android, as well as libraries for GTk and Mac. I'd be more inclined to use react and Redux with electron. With Cordova to bridge to mobile. Really do like VS Code. Just my two cents.

flomo 10y ago

Anyone else reminded of Visual C++ for Macintosh circa early 1990s?

pjmlp 10y ago
Yes, I surely do.
opless 10y ago
Indeed. smiles wryly

jmsmistral 10y ago

Great... Microsoft pushing their bloated sack of crap outside the confines of their abomination of an OS

BoysenberryPi 10y ago

I'm glad to see more Microsoft dev tools on other platforms but don't lose sight of why this is happening. Microsoft is shifting their business to the cloud. They make their money off Azure and other services. In other words, they are making their money mainly off of developers now and its in their best interest to get on the good side of devs which is why they suddenly have a vested interest in open sourcing tools and helping Mac/Linux. Given the love and lavish praise I see heaped on Microsoft in every thread they do something it's clearly working. I'm not saying don't praise them when they do something good but don't be deceived into thinking they are doing it out of good faith.

ocdtrekkie 10y ago
No business operates out of "good faith". For a long time, people treated Google like it was a nonprofit with all of the talk about making the world a better place, rather than recognizing it as, first and foremost, an ad company. As you point out, making people like your company is just good business, and successful businesses do that.
madeofpalk 10y ago
> don't lose sight of why this is happening. Microsoft is shifting their business to the cloud. Why is this a bad thing? Microsoft is a company, they exist to make money. A huge new market for them is 'Cloud' and they're doing everything they can to make that as appealing as possible.
- chillacy 10y ago
  If you want to be the tallest tree in the forest, you can take in the most water and sunlight to be taller than everyone else, or you can chop down all the other trees so you're the only one standing. Back when they made money from selling operating systems, they were definitely doing some tree chopping with some of their practices.
- nicky0 10y ago
  Did they say it was bad?
10y ago

tangue 10y ago

Visual Studio for python is really great. Any hints the Python tools will be ported/compatible with the Mac version ?

jeffwass 10y ago
I'm curious if you've tried Visual Studio Code for Python on Mac? I've heard good things about it, and just this past weekend tried it out, but couldn't even get a simple Hello World working on it for Python. I installed the common Python extension for it (Don Jayamanne's), but seems like it couldn't Link with the Python toolset. Ie, I could edit scripts with Python highlighting and autocomplete, but couldn't get them to execute. I gave up after an hour of trying and went back to pycharm. I'd be interested in giving it another go, but worried if I'm needing to bang my head just for a Hello World, how bad it might get later on.
- antfarm 10y ago
  I first tried VS Code for Python programming on the Mac last weekend, made it my main Python editor/ide by now. I found it extremely straightforward to set up, esp. the debugger is usable in a very intuitive way. Have you set the configuration setting for the python executable? "python.pythonPath": "/usr/bin/python", https://github.com/DonJayamanne/pythonVSCode/wiki/Python-Path-and-Version#manual-configuration https://github.com/DonJayamanne/pythonVSCode/wiki/Python-Pat...
  - antfarm 10y ago
    Another way to set the Python interpreter is described here: https://github.com/DonJayamanne/pythonVSCode/wiki/Miscellaneous#select-an-interpreter https://github.com/DonJayamanne/pythonVSCode/wiki/Miscellane...
- tangue 10y ago
  I didn't manage too. And I'm a bit confused since it seems simple according to other posts in this thread.

erikbye 10y ago

... and hell froze

HNSucksAss 10y ago

I was excited until this: "It’s all powered by the C# language you know and love" I'm pleased with MS's new cross-platform efforts and liked their dev tools a lot in the past, but that's an obnoxious, presumptuous, and laughable statement. I've been a professional developer on both Windows, Mac, and iOS and have never written a line of C# code. Swift is open-source, so why not migrate to that? Why should we learn C# instead (and that's a real question, not snark)?

delegate 10y ago

This is nice of course, but without C++ support it has very little appeal to me. I don't want to learn C# to write iOS apps. I might learn it just for fun, but I will continue writing the iOS apps with Swift/Objective-C and C++. C++ support is the weak spot of Xcode and so far I haven't found a suitable IDE for C++, except maybe Qt Creator and several IntelliJ-based IDEs, which are ok but not on par with Visual Studio on Windows. I keep a windows machine around mainly for writing C++ code (and games!).

philliphaydon 10y ago
Why don't you want to learn c# for iOS / Android development?
- Cthulhu_ 10y ago
  It's not iOS / Android development, it's Xamarin development. Not really the same thing.
  - philliphaydon 10y ago
    It's still c#...
- delegate 10y ago
  Because the officially supported language for iOS development is Swift (and ObjC) and Xcode is quite good for iOS development. I also like Swift a lot. It's a modern language with lots of powerful features and also very practical. My current project involves a lot of context switching between Swift, C++ and Objective-C++ and I miss a lot of Swift's features in C++.. For some obscure reason I also enjoy Objective-C++ quite a bit, it's a weird mixture of insanity but it feels good ;). I don't know a lot about C#, I think it must be a good language, albeit older with more historical baggage, but even so I wouldn't use it instead of Swift for iOS development. I mean, why ? For Android development - maybe - I'm not too fond of Java, but on iOS/Mac - I will stick with Swift thank you.
pjmlp 10y ago

partycoder 10y ago

It's a rebranded Xamarin Studio (MonoDevelop). I wonder if it will continue to support Android, or if there will be a Linux release.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

Hydraulix989 10y ago

This is absolutely amazing. C# has always been a great language, except the .NET ecosystem (sans Mono) has always revolved around Windows only. Next up, when is VS for Linux?

mb_72 10y ago
Indeed. I've been using XS on Mac and VS on PC to build a cross-platform product - with shared code for 'core' calculations + view model stuff and dedicated GUI pieces for each platform - for a couple of years now, and I've been sometimes very frustrated by the restrictions of XS compared to VS; it made the Mac side of things much slower to develop. This, and other recent moves by Microsoft with respect to Xamarin, have made me happy (and, yes, somewhat relieved), that I 'bet the company' on this kind of architecture. There doesn't appear to much demand for our product on Linux - it's targeted towards quite a conservative and on-tech market - but Linux support would also be very welcome.
pjmlp 10y ago
I guess they will only support it remotely, at least in C++ context. https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/vcblog/2016/06/07/visual-c-for-linux-updates/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/vcblog/2016/06/07/visual-c-...

kriro 10y ago

Most interesting part for me: """For the functional programmers among you, it includes excellent F# support, powered by the same F# compiler used in Visual Studio.""" I've heard that F# is great from multiple people I trust a lot (and a quick cross check showed it does indeed look very cool) so I might give it a try once this is released. I do some C# development (Unity Engine stuff) on my Powerbook so this is also good news (MonoDevelop is fine but I'll obviously test VS for Mac)

mcintyre1994 10y ago
F# is well supported by Visual Studio Code (with the Ionide plugin) too if you want to try it sooner.
wluu 10y ago
This will essentially be a rebranded Xamarin Studio and tweaked to look more like VS for Windows. And Xamarin is basically based off MonoDevelop.
te_platt 10y ago
I started converting some c# code to f# as a learning exercise about a month ago. After a few fits and starts, something clicked and I am amazed at how much I like it. I have been following the articles on "F# for fun and profit" and highly recommend it.
hellofunk 10y ago
OCaml guys don't seem to like F#, as its implementation differs from many in the FP world believe is "correct", but any form of FP on .NET is a good thing, I think.

pjmlp 10y ago

This feels like traveling back in time. I might have still some magazine lost somewhere about Visual Studion and MFC for Mac OS.

rl3 10y ago

>At its heart, Visual Studio for Mac is a macOS counterpart of the Windows version of Visual Studio. Does it have a monolithic install and update process that's essentially a slow, bloated black box? That's my main turn-off with Visual Studio on Windows, and even more so with Windows itself. As soon as Microsoft figures out efficient installation and updates via CLI without the need to reboot, they'll dominate the developer space (and perhaps server market, where reboots are even more problematic).

Permit 10y ago
A smaller and componentized install was a major focus for Visual Studio 2017. There's some more detail here: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/visualstudio/2016/08/22/visual-studio-15-preview-4/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/visualstudio/2016/08/22/vis... Smallest install is 500MB .NET/C# install is ~3GB I also believe you won't have to reboot with most installs.
- rl3 10y ago
  Nice, I totally wasn't aware of that. It's good to see VS finally headed down the right path in that regard.
  - simooooo 10y ago
    At a presentation at NDC or something Scott Hanselman did a bit where he pretended that he'd forgotten to install VS. Then he proceeded to install it live in the presentation, in less than a minute I think.
alkonaut 10y ago
The statement "macOS counterpart of the Windows version of Visual Studio" is essentially false as far as I can see, the core of VS for mac is Xamarin Studio which is not Visual Studio. Visual Studio for windows has two different "cores": the massive old C++/COM-based application used since forever, and the newer subsystems Such as The language subsystem (For C# and VB) Roslyn, which is .NET based. Xamarin Studio could be using Roslyn, but the app isn't based on the same platform as VS itself is. Since it is at it's core a newer and much smaller application, it shouldn't have to have any of the setup issues that VS has (just like VS code doesn't).

boraturan 10y ago

Sooner than expected

shadowmint 10y ago

Interesting move. I wonder how this will affect Rider (the new jetbrains C# IDE based on intellij, currently in EAP) and if they will continue to invest in Resharper for multiple platforms, or focus effort on bringing the resharper functionality into Rider. ...I also can't help but think this sort of indicates that the C# tooling in visual studio code is being reconsidered; which seems reasonable, I was always disappointed by it.

jbverschoor 10y ago

oh wow.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

megablast 10y ago

They already have Xamarin Studio.

jsingleton 10y ago

Good news and great timing! I had a four part blog post series on Xamarin.Forms and .NET on a Mac planned for this week. Starting with this introductory post today: https://unop.uk/cross-platform-native-mobile-app-development-options https://unop.uk/cross-platform-native-mobile-app-development...

piyush_soni 10y ago

Now only if they release a Linux version! All the existing IDEs and Editors are not even close to Visual Studio there IMO.

drej 10y ago

The big question is - can I use it with Intel Fortran? (I am, sadly, 100% serious.)

moljacsharp 10y ago
Monodevelop/Xamarin.Studio have really simple addin system and writing addin to support anything shouldn't be big problem. It is a lot easier than Visual Studio Extensibility system.

m4tthumphrey 10y ago

What is happening? Seriously. Microsoft releasing software to aid Mac users and Apple releasing hardware to hinder Mac users.

ldev 10y ago

Did the hell just froze over? That is one thing I never expected. .NET open source and officialy supported on *nix, some version of SQL Server on Linux, cross platform Visual Studio Code editor, now Visual Studio for macOS...

toothbrush 10y ago

Wow, i would've loved to see the look on people's faces if in, say, 2002, they could've glimpsed this headline from the future. Nobody would've believed it. How things change!

Bytes 10y ago

Is anyone else getting "the page you requested cannot be found"?

jonathanstrange 10y ago

This is very good in general. Now if they only could make a version for Linux and get rid of this whole "application barrier" thinking. Microsoft would probably be the only company right now who could fight the walled garden, developer lock-in approach that continues to destroy personal computing. But if the past holds any indication for the future, then I'm not holding my breath for it. They'll probably just use the Mac version to introduce slight incompatibilities or make the Mac versions of existing products kind of slower and buggier than the Windows versions. :(

Mtinie 10y ago

The posted link is now returning a 404 (as of 7:30AM EDT). "We're sorry, the page you requested cannot be found."

chocks 10y ago

link seems to be down - "We're sorry, the page you requested cannot be found"

Aldo_MX 10y ago
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Vk2On-9psscJ:https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/mt790182.aspx https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Vk2On-...
kenrick95 10y ago
I think it was an accidental post ahead of official announcement at Connect(); event on 19 November. Google cached version: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Vk2On-9psscJ:https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/mt790182.aspx https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Vk2On-...
- chocks 10y ago
  cool. Thanks!

donatj 10y ago

As a lover of VB.Net I am perennially disappointed with how little they seem to care about porting it solidly to other platforms or in general for that matter.

anupshinde 10y ago

This is great news! I was a c# developer for many years and absolutely loved it. But then I gave up the Microsoft ecosystem 7 years back just because it felt like a lock-in and also a bit backward compared to non-MS tech. But in the past one year, Microsoft has got me in again: a. Moved to TypeScript from JavaScript (including my hobby projects) b. Moved to VSCode from Sublime c. C# is a great language and I just hate Java. Hope this and more steps make it easy to use C# and deploy in non-MS environments.

Clubber 10y ago
C# is a lot different today than it was 7 years ago. You might be in for a shock. The nice thing is you can develop it today as you did 7 years ago, but with heavy use of lambdas and var, it reads almost like another language.
- littlegreenb18 10y ago
  7 years ago was 2009. var, lambdas, and linq were already in pretty heavy use by then. The biggest change since then is the dynamic language runtime, but I don't really see that used much in c#.
- MichaelGG 10y ago
  Those improvements came out 9 years ago.

king_magic 10y ago

Soooo... the link was working, now it's not, someone from Microsoft jumped the gun on posting this?

threepipeproblm 10y ago

Is it just me or did this article disappear?

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
gbtxg 10y ago
Same here. I get > We're sorry, the page you requested cannot be found.
- threepipeproblm 10y ago
  Same feeling I used to get when the recorded voice on the phone line said "We're sorry". The feeling that no one was actually sorry, except the person getting the message.

a1exus 10y ago

I'm getting page cannot be found..

xadhix 10y ago

We're sorry, the page you requested cannot be found. :(

jmcomets 10y ago
Same issue here, even on their "Downloads" page [1] it isn't shown available for Mac. [1]: https://www.visualstudio.com/downloads https://www.visualstudio.com/downloads
hajile 10y ago
Someone published a little too early

vikas0380 10y ago

Broken Link

DanHulton 10y ago
Cached version: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Vk2On-9psscJ:https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/mt790182.aspx+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Vk2On-...

Jaruzel 10y ago

Page has gone. Other people (buried in the comments) have posted the google cache of it, but here is it again for visibility: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Vk2On-9psscJ:https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/mt790182.aspx https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Vk2On-... Maybe a Feature Request for HN, would be for a 'alt' link (that mods update) as part of the clickables under the post title?

jsingleton 10y ago
Strange, not sure if this is a bug or if MS published too early and retracted it? Edit: Thanks for the tip BTW. I had linked to this from a blog post, but have now removed the dead link (https://unop.uk/cross-platform-native-mobile-app-development-options https://unop.uk/cross-platform-native-mobile-app-development...).
- FLGMwt 10y ago
  Almost definitely the latter. It was tagged `Connect()` which is a MS conference happening later this week. It's probably going to be announced there.
  - jsingleton 10y ago
    Ah OK, it was probably under embargo and got posted early by mistake. I've been to Connect(); before in a time zone ahead of the US and nothing gets announced in the morning until the US wakes up and the embargo is lifted. Edit: FYI Connect(); is November 16th-18th starting 9:45am EST https://connectevent.microsoft.com https://connectevent.microsoft.com
robert_tweed 10y ago
Since popular HN submissions will often hug the site to death, a nice feature would be to automatically check the top 3 caches (archive.org, Coral, Google) immediately on submission, before the page goes live on HN. If the cache doesn't 404, the content could be quickly parsed to check it matches the submission and, if so, automatically include the cache link at the top of the submission page. This would save people manually posting these all the time and would, in many cases prevent the case where it becomes impossible to retrieve a cache, because nobody thought to access one before the slashdot effect occurs. Or, as in this case it seems, the article is pulled. It would also be nice if, 24-48 hours after submission, the only cache link remaining is archive.org (if they have the page), so the content is retained permanently as-submitted. It's rare, but sometimes a page will be updated so the comments no longer make sense. It would also be nice to include a link history in the same area (have requested this before), in case the original submission is changed by the mod. Usually when this happens the notice is the top comment, but sometimes it isn't and the discussion can be quite confusing as a result.

utopcell 10y ago

That would be great news if the Microsoft c++ compiler was also part of it. Microsoft has added some amazing, in terms of performance, extensions to c++ lately, like coroutines support, that are not yet part of GCC or clang.

arenaninja 10y ago

This is a huge step forward, as this means I don't have to buy a new laptop just to work with C# (I've been waiting for Black Friday just for this). I wonder if this means SQL Server Express is coming as well, but that doesn't matter as much to me since I think Entity Framework takes care of working with a different database engine

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

jamesmp98 10y ago

So it's an updated version of Xamarin Studio... Not impressed.

homerguy69 10y ago

Broken link

DanHulton 10y ago
Cached version: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Vk2On-9psscJ:https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/mt790182.aspx+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Vk2On-...

sctb 10y ago

Since this was an accidental post (now removed) in advance of the actual announcement and release, we've buried this story. That way we can avoid treating the actual announcement as a duplicate when it happens.

kevinSuttle 10y ago

Ignoring the Apple vs MS thread: Can Mac users download this or not?

Kipters 10y ago
Not yet, wait for this wednesday