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VSCode really does improve with each release, and the monthly cycle is just about the perfect pace. This is a great example of how to run an OSS project. I won

VSCode really does improve with each release, and the monthly cycle is just about the perfect pace. This is a great example of how to run an OSS project. I wonder how much Microsoft spends on it each month, and what value they see in it? Is it just a marketing expense? e.g. They fund VSCode in order to gain the good will of developers which they hope will turn into Azure or maybe Windows sales in the future?

Joeri 10y ago
VS Code is a web dev IDE. Microsoft has lost the mobile platform wars and pushing the web is a way of countering that. Plus, web and azure do go hand-in-hand, as you point out.
- santaclaus 10y ago
  Nothing in VS Code is terribly web specific. I've been using it for C++ for which it works swimmingly.
  - ridiculous_fish 10y ago
    I would like to try it for native development. How do you run and debug your C++ programs from VSCode?
    - baldfat 10y ago
      https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/languages/cpp https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/languages/cpp > VS Code supports tasks that you can configure to build your application, and natively understands the output of MSBuild, CSC, and XBuild.
      - ridiculous_fish 10y ago
        Yes, building works well. But how do you run your application? (To be clear I'm asking what workflow users use personally, since it seems like nobody else has this issue.)
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
        david-given 10y ago
        For me, I build on the command line, because I have a funky build process, and then when I want to debug it I just press the 'debug' button. There's a big JSON file with the debug configurations, and a drop-down to allow you to select which one is active. Each gdb debug configuration lets you specify the usual binary path and command line arguments, plus a whole lot of other configuration I haven't looked at. I haven't had to do any project-style setup --- it just magically finds all my source files. It looks like it supports gdb on Windows and Linux and lldb on OSX (only ever tested on Linux, though). Out-of-the-box you get sample configurations to both run and attach to a C/C++ binary. gdb integration is pretty seamless; breakpoints, conditional breakpoints, stack traces, local and global variables. Haven't seen threads, watchpoints, or an assembly window yet. There's a debug console, but entering commands doesn't appear to send them to gdb. It's one of the best Linux gdb environments I've seen (even though most gdb integrations are terrible).
        int_19h 10y ago
        Threads are part of stack trace - if you look closely, it has nodes for threads, if you have more than one thread running. If you attach or launch more than one process, that's where they will appear also, as top-level tree nodes.
  - SippinLean 10y ago
    The personal preferences file includes several defaults for S/CSS, HTML, JS and TS, and it has a lot of Typescript stuff out of the box, some node stuff.
    - santaclaus 10y ago
      Right, but VS Code's depth into other languages and stacks is quite extensive, as well. If I were promoting a new text editor (hell, or any piece of software), I would certainly set the most-visible defaults to hit the most common use case, which at the moment is web front-end oriented tasks. To get a fairly full featured C++ experience, VS Code is up and running in three mouse clicks and two text fields from the splash screen -- this includes automated downloads and installs of major pieces of Clang tooling. I also write a fair amount of more data-centric Python, and the experience is similarly painless (I haven't tried Rust or Go, but if f*ing C++ is this easy I can't imagine other stacks are worse), so I don't think I'd call it web centric at all!
  - TeddyDD 10y ago
    I wonder what set up you have for c++ in VCode (plugins etc) I'm learning c++ at university and currently I use CodeBlocs since it have quite nice code completion.
- kzisme 10y ago
  I've never heard of VS Code referred to as a web dev IDE - what makes you say that?
  - ridiculous_fish 10y ago
    Well, the Task Runner has preconfigured options for Grunt, Gulp, npm, maven, and TypeScript, but not make, ghc, cargo, etc.
    - kzisme 10y ago
      That's pretty nice then - I haven't used it much at all, but I've read a fair bit about it. Thanks for the information!
- PopsiclePete 10y ago
  I use it full time for C, Go, Python, Ruby and NodeJS development. Works well with Rust as well. Nothing "web"-specific about it, really.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  They lost the mobile phone, but I bet they will win the hybrid tablet/netbooks one, given how Android tablets disappeared from many consumer shops here in Germany, only to be replaced by Windows 10 ones. Samsung and Asus ones seem to have been the surviving brands and even they have Win10 devices on their brand sections.
  - bitmapbrother 10y ago
    No they won't. No one wants to use clunky non touch optimized windows desktop apps on a tablet. Besides, UWP was a failure.
    - pjmlp 10y ago
      Ever heard of Project Centennial? Or the fact that all new APIs are mostly UWP only?
      - bitmapbrother 10y ago
        Yes, and how's that coming along? Is this "project" supposed to make those old clunky non touch optimized windows desktop apps suddenly usable on a tablet? I don't think so. Instead its going to be another failure just like Project Astoria and Project Islandwood.
        oldmanhorton 10y ago
        Astoria was the start of a lot of the technology behind the Windows Subsystem for Linux, if i remember correctly. I use WSL every day, so that was definitely not a failure in my book.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >They lost the mobile phone, but I bet they will win the hybrid tablet/netbooks one, given how Android tablets disappeared from many consumer shops here in Germany, only to be replaced by Windows 10 ones. That could just be a regional anomaly.
- segmondy 10y ago
  This is a ridiculous comment. There are plugins for every language. I use VS and I don't use it for HTML/CSS or Javascript yet.
- astrostl 10y ago
  Python and CloudFormation here. Others swear by the Golang support.
WorldMaker 10y ago
It's probably a complex set of factors including developer good will and competition in the marketplace (VSCode is obviously directly competing with Atom, for instance, which is also free). One interest small piece of the larger puzzle is that the Monaco text editor at the heart of VSCode was originally built for Azure and Visual Studio Team Services cloud editing. It was then also subsequently embedded into IE's Dev Tools (and now Edge's Dev Tools). It's a neat example of building a tool for several existing needs embedded into existing products/projects and then finding that the same tool was also interesting as the core to its own product.
- kzisme 10y ago
  VSCode vs Atom (in my opinion) isn't even a contest. Maybe Atom is super nice for some web dev stuff, but as a full flown IDE I just don't see the features.
  - computerex 10y ago
    Are you confusing VSCode with Visual Studio? VSCode is not an IDE, it's an editor, much like Atom.
    - kzisme 10y ago
      Possibly? VSCode stands for Visual Studio Code (https://code.visualstudio.com/ https://code.visualstudio.com/) right? I've just seen most comments referring to it as an IDE.
    - voxic11 10y ago
      Vscode is an IDE. It integrates all your development into one environment. It comes with support for version control, code editing, task running, and debugging all from one application.
      - computerex 10y ago
        An IDE is so much more. For instance, refactoring features. Even Microsoft defines VSCode as a "code editor" and not an IDE.
hobo_mark 10y ago
I assumed the idea was also to eventually to get some users to move to the "real" visual studio, which I ended up doing at least to debug C++, except the vs editor is so much worse! For example, I use Ctrl+D for multiple editing all the time and I converted other people to vscode based on that feature alone, yet it does not exist in visual studio...
- whatever_dude 10y ago
  I'm probably wrong, but I get the feeling VSC is where all the MS devs that were fed up with Visual Studio politics moved to. They're able to get new features rolling much faster, rather than going against the ingrained assumptions of an Enterprise Application like VS. I loved VS, but pro much stopped using it after starting to use VSC.
nikcub 10y ago
VS Code is part of the strategy to get .NET Core distributed and to support the web layers built on top of that which mostly now use open source technology (from npm and bower through to grunt, typescript and angular)
- nol13 10y ago
  Na, I think the real plan starting to unfold. This week we get the new welcome screen, next will be the "deploy to Azure" and "how to make a Windows Store App" sidebar links. (not that I'll stop using it, I'm sure someone will fork if gets too obnoxious)
  - partisan 10y ago
    Wow that is a scary vision and it would be heartbreaking if they rendered it unusable with ads or other nagging "features".
    - oblio 10y ago
      I doubt they will do that, they know that the project's success is 90% based on developer goodwill. My guess is that they will up-sell to a version with bundled plugins which offer turnkey integration with Azure.
CyanLite2 10y ago
It's the only practical way to do cross-platform .NET Core development.
- floopidydoopidy 10y ago
  If that's true, then I'd recommend not using either .NET or VSCode if cross platform matters to you. Historically speaking, Microsoft will break compatibility when it suits them.
  - thanksgiving 10y ago
    Are you talking about csproj -> project Jason ->
  - FlorianRappl 10y ago
    I think you confuse Microsoft with Apple.
  - TheCoreh 10y ago
    The project is Open Source, MIT licensed. If they break compatibility you (or someone else) can just fix it. No difference from any other OpenSource editor.
- nikon 10y ago
  Project Rider?
Yaggo 10y ago
> They fund VSCode in order to gain the good will of developers which they hope will turn into Azure or maybe Windows sales in the future? I think they are just trying to make Windows (and Microsoft) more relevant among web/foss developers by making sure that top-notch tools exist with first-class Windows support, so this falls to same category as Windows Subsystem for Linux.

Joeri 10y ago

VS Code is a web dev IDE. Microsoft has lost the mobile platform wars and pushing the web is a way of countering that. Plus, web and azure do go hand-in-hand, as you point out.

santaclaus 10y ago
Nothing in VS Code is terribly web specific. I've been using it for C++ for which it works swimmingly.
- ridiculous_fish 10y ago
  I would like to try it for native development. How do you run and debug your C++ programs from VSCode?
  - baldfat 10y ago
    https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/languages/cpp https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/languages/cpp > VS Code supports tasks that you can configure to build your application, and natively understands the output of MSBuild, CSC, and XBuild.
    - ridiculous_fish 10y ago
      Yes, building works well. But how do you run your application? (To be clear I'm asking what workflow users use personally, since it seems like nobody else has this issue.)
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      - david-given 10y ago
        For me, I build on the command line, because I have a funky build process, and then when I want to debug it I just press the 'debug' button. There's a big JSON file with the debug configurations, and a drop-down to allow you to select which one is active. Each gdb debug configuration lets you specify the usual binary path and command line arguments, plus a whole lot of other configuration I haven't looked at. I haven't had to do any project-style setup --- it just magically finds all my source files. It looks like it supports gdb on Windows and Linux and lldb on OSX (only ever tested on Linux, though). Out-of-the-box you get sample configurations to both run and attach to a C/C++ binary. gdb integration is pretty seamless; breakpoints, conditional breakpoints, stack traces, local and global variables. Haven't seen threads, watchpoints, or an assembly window yet. There's a debug console, but entering commands doesn't appear to send them to gdb. It's one of the best Linux gdb environments I've seen (even though most gdb integrations are terrible).
        int_19h 10y ago
        Threads are part of stack trace - if you look closely, it has nodes for threads, if you have more than one thread running. If you attach or launch more than one process, that's where they will appear also, as top-level tree nodes.
- SippinLean 10y ago
  The personal preferences file includes several defaults for S/CSS, HTML, JS and TS, and it has a lot of Typescript stuff out of the box, some node stuff.
  - santaclaus 10y ago
    Right, but VS Code's depth into other languages and stacks is quite extensive, as well. If I were promoting a new text editor (hell, or any piece of software), I would certainly set the most-visible defaults to hit the most common use case, which at the moment is web front-end oriented tasks. To get a fairly full featured C++ experience, VS Code is up and running in three mouse clicks and two text fields from the splash screen -- this includes automated downloads and installs of major pieces of Clang tooling. I also write a fair amount of more data-centric Python, and the experience is similarly painless (I haven't tried Rust or Go, but if f*ing C++ is this easy I can't imagine other stacks are worse), so I don't think I'd call it web centric at all!
- TeddyDD 10y ago
  I wonder what set up you have for c++ in VCode (plugins etc) I'm learning c++ at university and currently I use CodeBlocs since it have quite nice code completion.
kzisme 10y ago
I've never heard of VS Code referred to as a web dev IDE - what makes you say that?
- ridiculous_fish 10y ago
  Well, the Task Runner has preconfigured options for Grunt, Gulp, npm, maven, and TypeScript, but not make, ghc, cargo, etc.
  - kzisme 10y ago
    That's pretty nice then - I haven't used it much at all, but I've read a fair bit about it. Thanks for the information!
PopsiclePete 10y ago
I use it full time for C, Go, Python, Ruby and NodeJS development. Works well with Rust as well. Nothing "web"-specific about it, really.
pjmlp 10y ago
They lost the mobile phone, but I bet they will win the hybrid tablet/netbooks one, given how Android tablets disappeared from many consumer shops here in Germany, only to be replaced by Windows 10 ones. Samsung and Asus ones seem to have been the surviving brands and even they have Win10 devices on their brand sections.
- bitmapbrother 10y ago
  No they won't. No one wants to use clunky non touch optimized windows desktop apps on a tablet. Besides, UWP was a failure.
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    Ever heard of Project Centennial? Or the fact that all new APIs are mostly UWP only?
    - bitmapbrother 10y ago
      Yes, and how's that coming along? Is this "project" supposed to make those old clunky non touch optimized windows desktop apps suddenly usable on a tablet? I don't think so. Instead its going to be another failure just like Project Astoria and Project Islandwood.
      - oldmanhorton 10y ago
        Astoria was the start of a lot of the technology behind the Windows Subsystem for Linux, if i remember correctly. I use WSL every day, so that was definitely not a failure in my book.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >They lost the mobile phone, but I bet they will win the hybrid tablet/netbooks one, given how Android tablets disappeared from many consumer shops here in Germany, only to be replaced by Windows 10 ones. That could just be a regional anomaly.
segmondy 10y ago
This is a ridiculous comment. There are plugins for every language. I use VS and I don't use it for HTML/CSS or Javascript yet.
astrostl 10y ago
Python and CloudFormation here. Others swear by the Golang support.

WorldMaker 10y ago

It's probably a complex set of factors including developer good will and competition in the marketplace (VSCode is obviously directly competing with Atom, for instance, which is also free). One interest small piece of the larger puzzle is that the Monaco text editor at the heart of VSCode was originally built for Azure and Visual Studio Team Services cloud editing. It was then also subsequently embedded into IE's Dev Tools (and now Edge's Dev Tools). It's a neat example of building a tool for several existing needs embedded into existing products/projects and then finding that the same tool was also interesting as the core to its own product.

kzisme 10y ago
VSCode vs Atom (in my opinion) isn't even a contest. Maybe Atom is super nice for some web dev stuff, but as a full flown IDE I just don't see the features.
- computerex 10y ago
  Are you confusing VSCode with Visual Studio? VSCode is not an IDE, it's an editor, much like Atom.
  - kzisme 10y ago
    Possibly? VSCode stands for Visual Studio Code (https://code.visualstudio.com/ https://code.visualstudio.com/) right? I've just seen most comments referring to it as an IDE.
  - voxic11 10y ago
    Vscode is an IDE. It integrates all your development into one environment. It comes with support for version control, code editing, task running, and debugging all from one application.
    - computerex 10y ago
      An IDE is so much more. For instance, refactoring features. Even Microsoft defines VSCode as a "code editor" and not an IDE.

hobo_mark 10y ago

I assumed the idea was also to eventually to get some users to move to the "real" visual studio, which I ended up doing at least to debug C++, except the vs editor is so much worse! For example, I use Ctrl+D for multiple editing all the time and I converted other people to vscode based on that feature alone, yet it does not exist in visual studio...

whatever_dude 10y ago
I'm probably wrong, but I get the feeling VSC is where all the MS devs that were fed up with Visual Studio politics moved to. They're able to get new features rolling much faster, rather than going against the ingrained assumptions of an Enterprise Application like VS. I loved VS, but pro much stopped using it after starting to use VSC.

nikcub 10y ago

VS Code is part of the strategy to get .NET Core distributed and to support the web layers built on top of that which mostly now use open source technology (from npm and bower through to grunt, typescript and angular)

nol13 10y ago
Na, I think the real plan starting to unfold. This week we get the new welcome screen, next will be the "deploy to Azure" and "how to make a Windows Store App" sidebar links. (not that I'll stop using it, I'm sure someone will fork if gets too obnoxious)
- partisan 10y ago
  Wow that is a scary vision and it would be heartbreaking if they rendered it unusable with ads or other nagging "features".
  - oblio 10y ago
    I doubt they will do that, they know that the project's success is 90% based on developer goodwill. My guess is that they will up-sell to a version with bundled plugins which offer turnkey integration with Azure.

CyanLite2 10y ago

It's the only practical way to do cross-platform .NET Core development.

floopidydoopidy 10y ago
If that's true, then I'd recommend not using either .NET or VSCode if cross platform matters to you. Historically speaking, Microsoft will break compatibility when it suits them.
- thanksgiving 10y ago
  Are you talking about csproj -> project Jason ->
- FlorianRappl 10y ago
  I think you confuse Microsoft with Apple.
- TheCoreh 10y ago
  The project is Open Source, MIT licensed. If they break compatibility you (or someone else) can just fix it. No difference from any other OpenSource editor.
nikon 10y ago
Project Rider?

Yaggo 10y ago

> They fund VSCode in order to gain the good will of developers which they hope will turn into Azure or maybe Windows sales in the future? I think they are just trying to make Windows (and Microsoft) more relevant among web/foss developers by making sure that top-notch tools exist with first-class Windows support, so this falls to same category as Windows Subsystem for Linux.