11 ms·

Visual Studio online available for public preview

153 points by rdlou 7y ago

kissgyorgy 7y ago
This can be used to set up environments for Open Source projects to ease new contributors onboarding. Would be cool if I could click a button and I found myself in a fully set up environment with the project's Git repo checked out.
bouke 7y ago
What is the use case for a hosted Visual Studio Code?
- Hates_ 7y ago
  Being able to code on my iPad Pro would be one for me.
  - lostintangent 7y ago
    We’ve seen significant interest in folks wanting greater “device flexibility”, and so we’re excited to allow devs to use the tools they love from anywhere, and on any device. Since the browser is the universal app distribution platform, having a full-fidelity VS Code-based web editor, along with a powerful compute runtime, provides you with a companion tool (along with your desktop client) to choose the right tool for each task.
  - tluyben2 7y ago
    Same here. The battery life is stellar on that thing; being a productive coder there would really help.
  - thrower123 7y ago
    I assume that if you're trying to do this, you've got a keyboard attached to your iPad - I think I'd rather stick forks in my eyes than try to code with an on-screen keyboard. So at that point, why not just use a laptop?
    - patatino 7y ago
      No need for two devices? I‘m waiting until I can ditch my notebook and have a tablet for everything, including coding
    - melling 7y ago
      I build Swift playgrounds on my iPad. With great code completion using an on screen keyboard is fine for small prototypes. I wish I could simply say a new variable or function and have it inserted.
    - Hates_ 7y ago
      The Apple folio keyboard is actually really good. Even compared to my 12" Macbook the 11" iPad Pro is still more portable, plus I use the Apple Pencil a lot.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- tumetab1 7y ago
  From the site... Whether you’re working on a long-term project, a short-lived feature branch, or want to quickly review a pull request, Visual Studio Online can help you be more productive by providing a fully configured development environment in minutes. By pointing to a Git repo, Visual Studio Online sets up everything you need to focus on being productive: * Source code * Runtimes * Linters & debuggers * Extensions
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- gameswithgo 7y ago
  There is a startup here in Austin trying to create a business around the idea: https://coder.com/ https://coder.com/ I think some people see value in it as a security feature, or ease of development environment setup. There are also collaborative code editing features. You can both get into a file and type in it at the same time. You can get into your project and work on it from any machine, anywhere, even a phone, potentially. Personally though, I would never take a job where you do most of your coding in the cloud.
  - criddell 7y ago
    > ease of development environment setup That's a pretty compelling reason for me. There are some projects (like Chrome, Firefox, or even OpenSceneGraph) that aren't trivial to compile entirely from source. It would be pretty sweet to have a ready-to-build environment with the project and all dependencies one click away.
    - gameswithgo 7y ago
      Agreed, it is compelling. But not enough to overcome my abhorrence for adding latency to the development process! I wouldn't mind having that as an option though. Like, laptop in for repair, use the online dev environment. Traveling and have to fix a critical bug, hop on the cloud environment.
      - tluyben2 7y ago
        You should always have the option to run locally and ofcourse you can already do what you want via remote desktop/vnc/etc. I do and it works well (it's really fast usually for me; it feels faster than the mbp I have because when something is compiling, my local laptop doesn't feel like it's turning into a slow stream of lava). Web-assembly might help some here; it should be possible for the devs to split this up, depending on the tasks, to client and serverside, maybe depending on your computer specs and on the requirements of the task at hand. That should fix the latency for tasks that need to be instant (code completion) and tasks that can be a few seconds/minutes (compiling/packing). I am aware these are mixed tasks while developing so clever use should be made of what can be done locally and what should be done remotely.
- tonyedgecombe 7y ago
  Lock-in and future abuse when you can't escape the relationship.
  - Enginerrrd 7y ago
    I'm sure there's a value proposition in there somewhere, but looking at the way "software as a service" type models have been abused once users are committed and specifically looking at Microsoft's track record with things like the Zune DRM debacle, I think you'd have to be out of your mind to transition your company or team over to this. I recently transitioned to office 365 a year or two ago. Boy that was a huge mistake. Even though I still have 5 shares available, apparently they require office 365 users to login once a month, or they'll lock you out of your own software. Which makes zero sense because since I still have shares, there's not really a viable way to abuse that. This recently screwed me during the PG&E shutoffs and easily cost me $1000 in downtime for me and my team.
- OutsmartDan 7y ago
  Imagine you are in a cave, for no apparent reason, and your computer is no where to be found. The only computer there is a n old school terminal that is somehow running IE11. Your colleague commits something with tabs instead of spaces and you get the notification on your phone. Now you can easily login to VSCode online to re-indent everything with spaces, commit and push it back up, all through your web browser.
  - arkitaip 7y ago
    Obviously the way to Captain Kirk yourself out of this Kobayashi Maru situation would be to use the ancient terminal to bash your head in.
    - Havoc 7y ago
      I seem to recall that one ending differently. But I guess since we're mixing & matching...fair play
  - ryuukk_ 7y ago
    or: you want a machine that has X cpu, X ram, and you quickly want to setup a dev environement, be it for test purposes, online collaboration, teaching etc.. now you can i don't think "owning a workstation" is gonna be a thing in the future, power increase everyday just like Stadia, these kind of stuff is what will enable people to use POWERFULL workstations without having to own super expensive machines, or having to constantly buy an upgrade only visionary people can trully understand the potential of such service, it is the future, you better get ready and buy some stocks
  - einpoklum 7y ago
    > Imagine you are in a cave I thought you were going with a Platonic parable here, but then you threw in IE 11 into the mix :-(
  - teddyuk 7y ago
    in this cave you need internet access :)
- Someone1234 7y ago
  Edit code directly on Azure Services (e.g. Azure Functions) and real-time test the results of the changes. Aside from that just convenience for developers if you want to develop across multiple devices with internet connectivity (or using an iPad's web-browser), and as an alternative to a remote VM/Nano on a terminal. The use case for VSCode Online is the same as any other remote development environment, combine it with deployment workflows and or integrated services like Azure and it practically sells itself. Just like Slack the secret sauce here isn't the service itself, it is how it ties into everything else.
  - windsurfer 7y ago
    What other remote development environments exist? I can only think of cloud9.
    - Someone1234 7y ago
      Nano/vim/emacs/etc over a remote (SSH) terminal, remote VM, or remote session via other means (e.g. VNC/RDC/etc). People use Visual Studio itself remotely via VMs and RDC.
      - tluyben2 7y ago
        Yep, I use Remotix on a remote mac on my ipad pro. It works well mostly. When the bandwidth is not sufficient, it really drives one up a wall ofcourse...
        kkarakk 7y ago
        When you spend 1000s of dollars to get the dev experience we had at the dawn of the age of computing lol
        tluyben2 7y ago
        Yes :) Isn't modern computing excellent? One quite significant difference though; portability. Also not quite $1000s; $800 for the ipad (and a $400 one would do fine) and $20/mo for the mac. Beats a mbp most of the time in a modern 4g/wifi environment. Ofcourse there are many caveats; embedded programming, game programming, mobile app testing etc. But I still do about 60-70% (depending) on it; it's great for building / testing / deploying API's and some months that's all I do.
- meddlin 7y ago
  Perhaps this makes development on Chromebooks (or similar devices) "more possible". I'm struggling to think of something else though. It sure feels like forward thinking.
  - Havoc 7y ago
    Had a look at a chromebook for dev recently. I wanted to be enthusiastic....but 1366 x 768 and eMMC storage. I just can't. (Got a 2nd hand 2016 zenbook instead - wohoo 3200 x 1800 res)
- beamatronic 7y ago
  Use a chromebook? No security woes.
- lobo42 7y ago
  The real killer app is not using an IDE in the browser but using disposable, automated dev environments. I've written a blog post about: https://dev.to/svenefftinge/continuous-dev-environments-the-next-step-in-devops-4ab7 https://dev.to/svenefftinge/continuous-dev-environments-the-... (Disclaimer: I work on gitpod.io which is similar to Visual Studio Online)
  - lostintangent 7y ago
    Agreed! The on-demand dev environments are the real star here. Whether you use the web editor is up to you, since we also support working from your existing VS Code desktop setup as well. That said, we’ve found that having the option of a full-fidelity web editor, that’s fully interopable with VS Code desktop, can provide valuable flexibility for many use cases (e.g. making a quick edit when out of the office, doing a “rich” PR review in the browser).
  - Ididntdothis 7y ago
    I would like that. My work machine just crashed so I had to reimage it and then install all dev tools. Getting all the SQL server installs, Visual studio and a lot of other tools and their configuration back takes several days. It would be nice if we could set up a template for a full dev environment that everybody can use. I know a lot of companies have that but you need management to understand the issue which is often not the case.
  - sterlind 7y ago
    I use Nix for this. I have a library of building blocks that I import and customize to make `shell.nix` files, and then use nix-shell. Unfortunately, the Nix design patterns (though not the language, really) are esoteric and rather unstable, at the mercy of nixpkgs. If there were a "scene" around nixpkgs the way there is around apt PPAs, everyone could just put a shell.nix in their Githubs and onboarding would be instant. Still, I wish someone would get behind a FOSS project like nixpkgs.
- aikah 7y ago
  > What is the use case for a hosted Visual Studio Code? The same as Amazon cloud9, and other online IDE, it's about not having to install any SDK on your own computer to develop apps, which is really handy in the era of cheap SSD laptops and mobility. I have used cloud9 for years, unfortunately the editor itself hasn't had a real update for a long time. So VS online is a welcome addition. Congrats to the VSO team at Microsoft.
  - kkarakk 7y ago
    Yeah amazon basically froze cloud9 development last time i checked, i don't care enough to shift to whatever amazon has done to the thing...
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
lostintangent 7y ago
Hey All! I’m a PM on the Visual Studio Online team (as well as Live Share and IntelliCode), and we’re extremely excited to have more developers try out the product. Our goal is to dramatically reduce the cost of setup/onboarding, enable better team/classroom collaboration, and further support remote development. We believe that having on-demand, cloud-powered dev environments, that are accessible from VS Code and the web, provides a huge step towards achieving that. Let us know if you have any questions/comments/feedback, since we’re very keen to begin working with the broader developer community, and learning how we can continue to improve. Otherwise, check out the service (https://aka.ms/vso https://aka.ms/vso), and then let us know what you think (https://GitHub.com/microsoftdocs/vsonline https://GitHub.com/microsoftdocs/vsonline).
- msoad 7y ago
  Why this doesn't work with Github login? Why all this Azure/Microsoft login is required? This could be an immediate hit if I could click on a button in Github to open that repo in it with the environment all setup.
  - lostintangent 7y ago
    Thanks for the feedback! We definitely want to make onboarding to a GitHub repo as simple as possible. This is something we’ll be looking to gather feedback on from the community, so stay tuned as we iterate rapidly in the coming months.
    - wayneftw 7y ago
      I would like to add my voice to this issue. I never had anything but problems with my Microsoft and Azure accounts because of confusing UX. If I have to deal with live.microsoft.com I won’t use it. But, if you let me login with GitHub I might try it out. I don’t want to link my GitHub account. I want that to be the primary account used to access VS Live. I’m guessing that won’t happen though since you’ll want everyone to be ready to use Azure.
- sosuke 7y ago
amq 7y ago
I'm missing two things: - docker-compose support - ability to run multiple services from different repos
- lostintangent 7y ago
  Thanks for the feedback! Docker Compose support is on our roadmap, and you can track progress of it here: https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/vsonline/issues/35 https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/vsonline/issues/35. If you could upvote that issue, that would be much appreciated!
  - ChrisLTD 7y ago
    Upvoted. With docker compose support, I'd definitely move away from the increasingly crusty Cloud9 service from AWS.
gketuma 7y ago
Isn't this what CodeSandbox is?
AlexeyBrin 7y ago
It would be great if there would be a free tier for people that want to learn C++ with VS. Something that lets you use VS online for small C++ programs (similar with Compiler Explorer but with support for running the generated binary) to build and run these small programs.
- einpoklum 7y ago
  No, it would not be great. We should not condone luring people into reliance on closed proprietary technology with "free tiers". It would be great if people organized and got Intellectual Property thoroughly de-legitimized.
  - AlexeyBrin 7y ago
    I prefer a pragmatic solution and I encourage people to test their code with all available major C++ compilers (GCC, Clang and MSVC).
    - einpoklum 7y ago
      I agree that, as developers, we can't ignore people who use MSVC on Windows. But we shouldn't encourage _this_ kind of initiative, especially among junior developers. They shouldn't be caught in the web of depending on Microsoft for things.
  - colechristensen 7y ago
    What's left? What can you own and control and sell and restrict? The Chinese economy doesn't have intellectual property restrictions to speak of, would you prefer that economy? (everything is a copy of a copy of a copy and most of it is terrible) How do specialist tools get created, things of high value which take a lot of work to produce and have only a small number of users? We use money and restrictions on property to allocate resources, if you take that away there is still allocation, but is it always better? (say, squabbling wikipedia or stackoverflow zealots)
    - 7y ago
samtrack2019 7y ago
On the image from "Develop from anywhere" I see Paris, SF and Sydney, why is it that those cities has been chosen?
- lucideer 7y ago
  Most recognisable and most evenly geographically distributed large western landmarks?
nshm 7y ago
So, VS Express 2010 was 500Mb, then VS 2019 Express required 11 Gb for installation. When it has grown to 100Gb they decided to move it in the cloud. I said thank you and compiled everything with MINGW on Linux. Apt installed mingw in 30 seconds. And no pain with perl script to create VS solutions, import and configure them, same cmake build works just fine.
alephnan 7y ago
A solid browser based IDE would pare well with Azure or some other cloud provider. Specifically, “serverless” products where devs can focus on code, disregarding environment issues. AWS acquired Cloud9. Google Cloud Function has an in-browser code editor for inline editing, but it’s not aware of any language constructs beyond syntax highlighting.
oaiey 7y ago
How is this offering that what Eclipse Che offers?
orloffm 7y ago
Interestingly there is 1 white woman per 9 people of color on that page. Obviously, marketing the tool as accessible is a good thing, but doesn't this negatively resonate with common blue-collar folk as being a buggy half-baked corporate thing developed by H1B Indians? I don't have any negativity against anyone here, but it feels to be a taboo topic which is not touched or discussed, and I'd like to get some perspective on how it is perceived by people.
adityakr082 7y ago
Came here to tell about a similar project: coder.com They offer a root environment too which, IMO, is a deal maker for me.
TomFrost 7y ago
I love the Remote SSH extension for VSCode (save for the frustrating workarounds necessary for ssh-agent forwarding -- an absolutely necessary feature) and expected VSO to be much more streamlined. But I find myself hitting early walls: - No documentation on how to clone a private github repo, gitlab repo, etc. - Cloning a private repo on the command line eschews the ability to bootstrap your VSO instance using the in-repo config, which kills a huge benefit of this product - No documentation on forwarding ssh-agent or injecting RSA keys of any kind There are some other needs addressed in other comment threads (particularly registering a remote headless box as a VSO machine) but the above are instant showstoppers. Perhaps this works with private Azure DevOps repos because of the login integration? I'd be willing to wager that the majority of folks interested in this are on other repo hosts, though.

153 points by rdlou 7y ago

This can be used to set up environments for Open Source projects to ease new contributors onboarding. Would be cool if I could click a button and I found myself in a fully set up environment with the project's Git repo checked out.

bouke 7y ago

What is the use case for a hosted Visual Studio Code?

Hates_ 7y ago
Being able to code on my iPad Pro would be one for me.
- lostintangent 7y ago
  We’ve seen significant interest in folks wanting greater “device flexibility”, and so we’re excited to allow devs to use the tools they love from anywhere, and on any device. Since the browser is the universal app distribution platform, having a full-fidelity VS Code-based web editor, along with a powerful compute runtime, provides you with a companion tool (along with your desktop client) to choose the right tool for each task.
- tluyben2 7y ago
  Same here. The battery life is stellar on that thing; being a productive coder there would really help.
- thrower123 7y ago
  I assume that if you're trying to do this, you've got a keyboard attached to your iPad - I think I'd rather stick forks in my eyes than try to code with an on-screen keyboard. So at that point, why not just use a laptop?
  - patatino 7y ago
    No need for two devices? I‘m waiting until I can ditch my notebook and have a tablet for everything, including coding
  - melling 7y ago
    I build Swift playgrounds on my iPad. With great code completion using an on screen keyboard is fine for small prototypes. I wish I could simply say a new variable or function and have it inserted.
  - Hates_ 7y ago
    The Apple folio keyboard is actually really good. Even compared to my 12" Macbook the 11" iPad Pro is still more portable, plus I use the Apple Pencil a lot.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
tumetab1 7y ago
From the site... Whether you’re working on a long-term project, a short-lived feature branch, or want to quickly review a pull request, Visual Studio Online can help you be more productive by providing a fully configured development environment in minutes. By pointing to a Git repo, Visual Studio Online sets up everything you need to focus on being productive: * Source code * Runtimes * Linters & debuggers * Extensions
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
gameswithgo 7y ago
There is a startup here in Austin trying to create a business around the idea: https://coder.com/ https://coder.com/ I think some people see value in it as a security feature, or ease of development environment setup. There are also collaborative code editing features. You can both get into a file and type in it at the same time. You can get into your project and work on it from any machine, anywhere, even a phone, potentially. Personally though, I would never take a job where you do most of your coding in the cloud.
- criddell 7y ago
  > ease of development environment setup That's a pretty compelling reason for me. There are some projects (like Chrome, Firefox, or even OpenSceneGraph) that aren't trivial to compile entirely from source. It would be pretty sweet to have a ready-to-build environment with the project and all dependencies one click away.
  - gameswithgo 7y ago
    Agreed, it is compelling. But not enough to overcome my abhorrence for adding latency to the development process! I wouldn't mind having that as an option though. Like, laptop in for repair, use the online dev environment. Traveling and have to fix a critical bug, hop on the cloud environment.
    - tluyben2 7y ago
      You should always have the option to run locally and ofcourse you can already do what you want via remote desktop/vnc/etc. I do and it works well (it's really fast usually for me; it feels faster than the mbp I have because when something is compiling, my local laptop doesn't feel like it's turning into a slow stream of lava). Web-assembly might help some here; it should be possible for the devs to split this up, depending on the tasks, to client and serverside, maybe depending on your computer specs and on the requirements of the task at hand. That should fix the latency for tasks that need to be instant (code completion) and tasks that can be a few seconds/minutes (compiling/packing). I am aware these are mixed tasks while developing so clever use should be made of what can be done locally and what should be done remotely.
tonyedgecombe 7y ago
Lock-in and future abuse when you can't escape the relationship.
- Enginerrrd 7y ago
  I'm sure there's a value proposition in there somewhere, but looking at the way "software as a service" type models have been abused once users are committed and specifically looking at Microsoft's track record with things like the Zune DRM debacle, I think you'd have to be out of your mind to transition your company or team over to this. I recently transitioned to office 365 a year or two ago. Boy that was a huge mistake. Even though I still have 5 shares available, apparently they require office 365 users to login once a month, or they'll lock you out of your own software. Which makes zero sense because since I still have shares, there's not really a viable way to abuse that. This recently screwed me during the PG&E shutoffs and easily cost me $1000 in downtime for me and my team.
OutsmartDan 7y ago
Imagine you are in a cave, for no apparent reason, and your computer is no where to be found. The only computer there is a n old school terminal that is somehow running IE11. Your colleague commits something with tabs instead of spaces and you get the notification on your phone. Now you can easily login to VSCode online to re-indent everything with spaces, commit and push it back up, all through your web browser.
- arkitaip 7y ago
  Obviously the way to Captain Kirk yourself out of this Kobayashi Maru situation would be to use the ancient terminal to bash your head in.
  - Havoc 7y ago
    I seem to recall that one ending differently. But I guess since we're mixing & matching...fair play
- ryuukk_ 7y ago
  or: you want a machine that has X cpu, X ram, and you quickly want to setup a dev environement, be it for test purposes, online collaboration, teaching etc.. now you can i don't think "owning a workstation" is gonna be a thing in the future, power increase everyday just like Stadia, these kind of stuff is what will enable people to use POWERFULL workstations without having to own super expensive machines, or having to constantly buy an upgrade only visionary people can trully understand the potential of such service, it is the future, you better get ready and buy some stocks
- einpoklum 7y ago
  > Imagine you are in a cave I thought you were going with a Platonic parable here, but then you threw in IE 11 into the mix :-(
- teddyuk 7y ago
  in this cave you need internet access :)
Someone1234 7y ago
Edit code directly on Azure Services (e.g. Azure Functions) and real-time test the results of the changes. Aside from that just convenience for developers if you want to develop across multiple devices with internet connectivity (or using an iPad's web-browser), and as an alternative to a remote VM/Nano on a terminal. The use case for VSCode Online is the same as any other remote development environment, combine it with deployment workflows and or integrated services like Azure and it practically sells itself. Just like Slack the secret sauce here isn't the service itself, it is how it ties into everything else.
- windsurfer 7y ago
  What other remote development environments exist? I can only think of cloud9.
  - Someone1234 7y ago
    Nano/vim/emacs/etc over a remote (SSH) terminal, remote VM, or remote session via other means (e.g. VNC/RDC/etc). People use Visual Studio itself remotely via VMs and RDC.
    - tluyben2 7y ago
      Yep, I use Remotix on a remote mac on my ipad pro. It works well mostly. When the bandwidth is not sufficient, it really drives one up a wall ofcourse...
      - kkarakk 7y ago
        When you spend 1000s of dollars to get the dev experience we had at the dawn of the age of computing lol
        tluyben2 7y ago
        Yes :) Isn't modern computing excellent? One quite significant difference though; portability. Also not quite $1000s; $800 for the ipad (and a $400 one would do fine) and $20/mo for the mac. Beats a mbp most of the time in a modern 4g/wifi environment. Ofcourse there are many caveats; embedded programming, game programming, mobile app testing etc. But I still do about 60-70% (depending) on it; it's great for building / testing / deploying API's and some months that's all I do.
meddlin 7y ago
Perhaps this makes development on Chromebooks (or similar devices) "more possible". I'm struggling to think of something else though. It sure feels like forward thinking.
- Havoc 7y ago
  Had a look at a chromebook for dev recently. I wanted to be enthusiastic....but 1366 x 768 and eMMC storage. I just can't. (Got a 2nd hand 2016 zenbook instead - wohoo 3200 x 1800 res)
beamatronic 7y ago
Use a chromebook? No security woes.
lobo42 7y ago
The real killer app is not using an IDE in the browser but using disposable, automated dev environments. I've written a blog post about: https://dev.to/svenefftinge/continuous-dev-environments-the-next-step-in-devops-4ab7 https://dev.to/svenefftinge/continuous-dev-environments-the-... (Disclaimer: I work on gitpod.io which is similar to Visual Studio Online)
- lostintangent 7y ago
  Agreed! The on-demand dev environments are the real star here. Whether you use the web editor is up to you, since we also support working from your existing VS Code desktop setup as well. That said, we’ve found that having the option of a full-fidelity web editor, that’s fully interopable with VS Code desktop, can provide valuable flexibility for many use cases (e.g. making a quick edit when out of the office, doing a “rich” PR review in the browser).
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  I would like that. My work machine just crashed so I had to reimage it and then install all dev tools. Getting all the SQL server installs, Visual studio and a lot of other tools and their configuration back takes several days. It would be nice if we could set up a template for a full dev environment that everybody can use. I know a lot of companies have that but you need management to understand the issue which is often not the case.
- sterlind 7y ago
  I use Nix for this. I have a library of building blocks that I import and customize to make `shell.nix` files, and then use nix-shell. Unfortunately, the Nix design patterns (though not the language, really) are esoteric and rather unstable, at the mercy of nixpkgs. If there were a "scene" around nixpkgs the way there is around apt PPAs, everyone could just put a shell.nix in their Githubs and onboarding would be instant. Still, I wish someone would get behind a FOSS project like nixpkgs.
aikah 7y ago
> What is the use case for a hosted Visual Studio Code? The same as Amazon cloud9, and other online IDE, it's about not having to install any SDK on your own computer to develop apps, which is really handy in the era of cheap SSD laptops and mobility. I have used cloud9 for years, unfortunately the editor itself hasn't had a real update for a long time. So VS online is a welcome addition. Congrats to the VSO team at Microsoft.
- kkarakk 7y ago
  Yeah amazon basically froze cloud9 development last time i checked, i don't care enough to shift to whatever amazon has done to the thing...

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

lostintangent 7y ago

Hey All! I’m a PM on the Visual Studio Online team (as well as Live Share and IntelliCode), and we’re extremely excited to have more developers try out the product. Our goal is to dramatically reduce the cost of setup/onboarding, enable better team/classroom collaboration, and further support remote development. We believe that having on-demand, cloud-powered dev environments, that are accessible from VS Code and the web, provides a huge step towards achieving that. Let us know if you have any questions/comments/feedback, since we’re very keen to begin working with the broader developer community, and learning how we can continue to improve. Otherwise, check out the service (https://aka.ms/vso https://aka.ms/vso), and then let us know what you think (https://GitHub.com/microsoftdocs/vsonline https://GitHub.com/microsoftdocs/vsonline).

msoad 7y ago
Why this doesn't work with Github login? Why all this Azure/Microsoft login is required? This could be an immediate hit if I could click on a button in Github to open that repo in it with the environment all setup.
- lostintangent 7y ago
  Thanks for the feedback! We definitely want to make onboarding to a GitHub repo as simple as possible. This is something we’ll be looking to gather feedback on from the community, so stay tuned as we iterate rapidly in the coming months.
  - wayneftw 7y ago
    I would like to add my voice to this issue. I never had anything but problems with my Microsoft and Azure accounts because of confusing UX. If I have to deal with live.microsoft.com I won’t use it. But, if you let me login with GitHub I might try it out. I don’t want to link my GitHub account. I want that to be the primary account used to access VS Live. I’m guessing that won’t happen though since you’ll want everyone to be ready to use Azure.
sosuke 7y ago

amq 7y ago

I'm missing two things: - docker-compose support - ability to run multiple services from different repos

lostintangent 7y ago
Thanks for the feedback! Docker Compose support is on our roadmap, and you can track progress of it here: https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/vsonline/issues/35 https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/vsonline/issues/35. If you could upvote that issue, that would be much appreciated!
- ChrisLTD 7y ago
  Upvoted. With docker compose support, I'd definitely move away from the increasingly crusty Cloud9 service from AWS.

gketuma 7y ago

Isn't this what CodeSandbox is?

AlexeyBrin 7y ago

It would be great if there would be a free tier for people that want to learn C++ with VS. Something that lets you use VS online for small C++ programs (similar with Compiler Explorer but with support for running the generated binary) to build and run these small programs.

einpoklum 7y ago
No, it would not be great. We should not condone luring people into reliance on closed proprietary technology with "free tiers". It would be great if people organized and got Intellectual Property thoroughly de-legitimized.
- AlexeyBrin 7y ago
  I prefer a pragmatic solution and I encourage people to test their code with all available major C++ compilers (GCC, Clang and MSVC).
  - einpoklum 7y ago
    I agree that, as developers, we can't ignore people who use MSVC on Windows. But we shouldn't encourage _this_ kind of initiative, especially among junior developers. They shouldn't be caught in the web of depending on Microsoft for things.
- colechristensen 7y ago
  What's left? What can you own and control and sell and restrict? The Chinese economy doesn't have intellectual property restrictions to speak of, would you prefer that economy? (everything is a copy of a copy of a copy and most of it is terrible) How do specialist tools get created, things of high value which take a lot of work to produce and have only a small number of users? We use money and restrictions on property to allocate resources, if you take that away there is still allocation, but is it always better? (say, squabbling wikipedia or stackoverflow zealots)
  - 7y ago

samtrack2019 7y ago

On the image from "Develop from anywhere" I see Paris, SF and Sydney, why is it that those cities has been chosen?

lucideer 7y ago
Most recognisable and most evenly geographically distributed large western landmarks?

nshm 7y ago

So, VS Express 2010 was 500Mb, then VS 2019 Express required 11 Gb for installation. When it has grown to 100Gb they decided to move it in the cloud. I said thank you and compiled everything with MINGW on Linux. Apt installed mingw in 30 seconds. And no pain with perl script to create VS solutions, import and configure them, same cmake build works just fine.

alephnan 7y ago

A solid browser based IDE would pare well with Azure or some other cloud provider. Specifically, “serverless” products where devs can focus on code, disregarding environment issues. AWS acquired Cloud9. Google Cloud Function has an in-browser code editor for inline editing, but it’s not aware of any language constructs beyond syntax highlighting.

oaiey 7y ago

How is this offering that what Eclipse Che offers?

orloffm 7y ago

Interestingly there is 1 white woman per 9 people of color on that page. Obviously, marketing the tool as accessible is a good thing, but doesn't this negatively resonate with common blue-collar folk as being a buggy half-baked corporate thing developed by H1B Indians? I don't have any negativity against anyone here, but it feels to be a taboo topic which is not touched or discussed, and I'd like to get some perspective on how it is perceived by people.

adityakr082 7y ago

Came here to tell about a similar project: coder.com They offer a root environment too which, IMO, is a deal maker for me.

TomFrost 7y ago

I love the Remote SSH extension for VSCode (save for the frustrating workarounds necessary for ssh-agent forwarding -- an absolutely necessary feature) and expected VSO to be much more streamlined. But I find myself hitting early walls: - No documentation on how to clone a private github repo, gitlab repo, etc. - Cloning a private repo on the command line eschews the ability to bootstrap your VSO instance using the in-repo config, which kills a huge benefit of this product - No documentation on forwarding ssh-agent or injecting RSA keys of any kind There are some other needs addressed in other comment threads (particularly registering a remote headless box as a VSO machine) but the above are instant showstoppers. Perhaps this works with private Azure DevOps repos because of the login integration? I'd be willing to wager that the majority of folks interested in this are on other repo hosts, though.