4 ms·

It has taken .net and Microsoft a long time to get to this point. But I do feel we're in a really good state for .net development. I do agree what kqr mentions

by asabla 3y ago

It has taken .net and Microsoft a long time to get to this point. But I do feel we're in a really good state for .net development. I do agree what kqr mentions in the blog post, that the state of .net wasn't really that great during the core era (especially during 1-3). But after hitting .net core 3.1 things really took a turn. And now with .Net 8 (note that core is not part of the naming anymore), things are looking great. The two things which lags behind in both experience and is still UX related. MAUI was meant to be this super cool new UX tech, which would save us from electron. But it never happen, and may never do it in the future either. The second one is Blazor. It's such a mixed bag of what the experience is. Sometimes it's so seamless and nice...and then you hit some weird LSP stuff and away goes type checking, hinting and syntax highlighting. But there is hope ig guess. If you're interested in writing C# and .Net code on a Linux machine. Then wait no further. VS Code (with .Net dev kit extension) works great. And if you're like (which prefers neovim), things are pretty good as well. Just don't expect to have a good experience with razor pages and/or blazor (when using Neovim instead of VS Code).

generichuman 3y ago
> If you're interested in writing C# and .Net code on a Linux machine. Then wait no further. VS Code (with .Net dev kit extension) works great. Unless you're writing Roslyn source generators. You can only debug them with (non-code) Visual Studio on Windows in my experience. Rider does not work well either.
- ygra 3y ago
  You can probably attach to the compiler process with any debugger. Even just hitting F5 in VS didn't do the expected thing as it ended up debugging devenv.exe instead of VBCSCompiler.exe (the Roslyn analysis process). But if Rider (or VS Code) can attach to other processes, you should be able to debug your analyzers (and source generators).
- throw__away7391 3y ago
  My experience is that Rider works much much better (on Mac) for source generators than Visual Studio did on Windows. In particular it handles changes without reloading the solution far better than VS. I should probably add I have never used Rider on Windows, could be different there.
louthy 3y ago
> If you're interested in writing C# and .Net code on a Linux machine. Then wait no further. VS Code (with .Net dev kit extension) works great. I’d advise using Jet brains Rider for serious C# development (on both Linux and Windows). It’s a serious competitor to Visual Studio (and is vastly superior to VS Code)
- pknopf 3y ago
  Yup! Well worth the 20 bucks a month!
- doodlesdev 3y ago
  Why is that? I've used JetBrains IDEs in the past, but haven't found anything that compelled me to spend money on them (and lock myself to a proprietary editor, which is a bigger issue for me).
  - zamalek 3y ago
    I work on a big monorepo. OmniSharp takes so long to load that it's basically useless, I gave up at 10min. Rider takes a minute or so.
    - asabla 3y ago
      With the new Dev Kit extension in VS Code, it no longer uses omnisharp. So it may gotten better in larger monorepos. But my guess it's still faster in Rider
      - pjmlp 3y ago
        Dev Kit extension is also partially pay for play, as only a subset of its features are available under community license. "C# Dev Kit builds on the same foundations as Visual Studio for some of its functionality, it uses the same license model as Visual Studio. This means it's free for individuals, as well as academia and open-source development, the same terms that apply to Visual Studio Community. For organizations, the C# Dev Kit is included with Visual Studio Professional and Enterprise subscriptions, as well as GitHub Codespaces."
bottlepalm 3y ago
Blazor is such a disaster. Frameworks like Next/Remix/Svelte are running circles around it. I'd go so far as to say they should create their own TypeScript based SSR framework if they still want to be relevant in the non-enterprise web game.
- tracker1 3y ago
  I think that Razor + HTMX might be the better approach in that space.
  - bottlepalm 3y ago
    I find the HTML fragments needed to be HTMX to be unmaintainable for large projects. The static typing for the fragments isn't there either when you're trying to compose fragment components.
- tatersolid 3y ago
  > if they still want to be relevant in the non-enterprise web game They don’t. Microsoft makes products for companies who will pay for software.
  - bottlepalm 3y ago
    They're losing a lot of business to Next.js/Remix/Svelte. If MS had a viable competitor based on .Net then more businesses might keep their IIS and Windows Server licenses. The Windows path leads businesses to SQL Server as well. I've seen this play out first hand.
    - pjmlp 3y ago
      Sadly can confirm, I have been working as polyglot dev for years, also a reason why I have so many opinions, never siloing under a specific XVYZ Developer label. Several CMS on the .NET ecosystem that relied on .NET for their plugins, when they went headless, decided to focus on supporting Next.js and friends for their UI component layer, removing Web Forms, MVC, Razor Pages support for these kind of workflows. Others, like Sitecore, decided that it was too much code to rewrite from .NET Framework to .NET Core, and not only refocused on Next.js with Vercel agreements, they also pivoted for an API first approach, and acquired non-.NET based products as means to evolve their product roadmap away from .NET. Myself, I have been involved in a couple of .NET Framework to Java migration projects, as given some of the stuff the customers would need to write from scratch in modern .NET, they decided it was the right time to move away from Microsoft stack on the server infrastructure. It should be noted that it isn't an accident that Microsoft, after all these years, has acquired jClarity and is now an OpenJDK contributor. Who have thought to see this kind of stuff a few years ago? https://devblogs.microsoft.com/java/ https://devblogs.microsoft.com/java/ https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/31/microsoft_seeks_rust_developers/ https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/31/microsoft_seeks_rust_...
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
pjmlp 3y ago
They are only great for those of us that use Windows as our main desktop. Microsoft's scenario for non-Windows is clearly driven by Azure and mobile platforms. VSCode development experience is only done to be good enough to drive people into VS proper, as it has already been confirmed in a couple of podcast interviews, that there is no plan for feature parity. So if one wants feature parity with VS outside Windows shelling out money for Rider is the only option. Ironically Java still wins out in tooling, not only is InteliJ community free beer, there is Eclipse and Netbeans, while Red-Hat in collaboration with Microsoft, makes most of headless Eclipse run on VSCode, a much better experience than .NET on VSCode. Even the Python experience on VSCode is better. Additionally none of them have "pro" features gated by license, as in the .NET VSCode plugin. It feels like while .NET team tries to turn the ecosystem around into FOSS, management ie still pretty much into VS/Windows/Azure, with some carrots for other scenarios.

by asabla 3y ago

generichuman 3y ago

> If you're interested in writing C# and .Net code on a Linux machine. Then wait no further. VS Code (with .Net dev kit extension) works great. Unless you're writing Roslyn source generators. You can only debug them with (non-code) Visual Studio on Windows in my experience. Rider does not work well either.

ygra 3y ago
You can probably attach to the compiler process with any debugger. Even just hitting F5 in VS didn't do the expected thing as it ended up debugging devenv.exe instead of VBCSCompiler.exe (the Roslyn analysis process). But if Rider (or VS Code) can attach to other processes, you should be able to debug your analyzers (and source generators).
throw__away7391 3y ago
My experience is that Rider works much much better (on Mac) for source generators than Visual Studio did on Windows. In particular it handles changes without reloading the solution far better than VS. I should probably add I have never used Rider on Windows, could be different there.

louthy 3y ago

> If you're interested in writing C# and .Net code on a Linux machine. Then wait no further. VS Code (with .Net dev kit extension) works great. I’d advise using Jet brains Rider for serious C# development (on both Linux and Windows). It’s a serious competitor to Visual Studio (and is vastly superior to VS Code)

pknopf 3y ago
Yup! Well worth the 20 bucks a month!
doodlesdev 3y ago
Why is that? I've used JetBrains IDEs in the past, but haven't found anything that compelled me to spend money on them (and lock myself to a proprietary editor, which is a bigger issue for me).
- zamalek 3y ago
  I work on a big monorepo. OmniSharp takes so long to load that it's basically useless, I gave up at 10min. Rider takes a minute or so.
  - asabla 3y ago
    With the new Dev Kit extension in VS Code, it no longer uses omnisharp. So it may gotten better in larger monorepos. But my guess it's still faster in Rider
    - pjmlp 3y ago
      Dev Kit extension is also partially pay for play, as only a subset of its features are available under community license. "C# Dev Kit builds on the same foundations as Visual Studio for some of its functionality, it uses the same license model as Visual Studio. This means it's free for individuals, as well as academia and open-source development, the same terms that apply to Visual Studio Community. For organizations, the C# Dev Kit is included with Visual Studio Professional and Enterprise subscriptions, as well as GitHub Codespaces."

bottlepalm 3y ago

Blazor is such a disaster. Frameworks like Next/Remix/Svelte are running circles around it. I'd go so far as to say they should create their own TypeScript based SSR framework if they still want to be relevant in the non-enterprise web game.

tracker1 3y ago
I think that Razor + HTMX might be the better approach in that space.
- bottlepalm 3y ago
  I find the HTML fragments needed to be HTMX to be unmaintainable for large projects. The static typing for the fragments isn't there either when you're trying to compose fragment components.
tatersolid 3y ago
> if they still want to be relevant in the non-enterprise web game They don’t. Microsoft makes products for companies who will pay for software.
- bottlepalm 3y ago
  They're losing a lot of business to Next.js/Remix/Svelte. If MS had a viable competitor based on .Net then more businesses might keep their IIS and Windows Server licenses. The Windows path leads businesses to SQL Server as well. I've seen this play out first hand.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    Sadly can confirm, I have been working as polyglot dev for years, also a reason why I have so many opinions, never siloing under a specific XVYZ Developer label. Several CMS on the .NET ecosystem that relied on .NET for their plugins, when they went headless, decided to focus on supporting Next.js and friends for their UI component layer, removing Web Forms, MVC, Razor Pages support for these kind of workflows. Others, like Sitecore, decided that it was too much code to rewrite from .NET Framework to .NET Core, and not only refocused on Next.js with Vercel agreements, they also pivoted for an API first approach, and acquired non-.NET based products as means to evolve their product roadmap away from .NET. Myself, I have been involved in a couple of .NET Framework to Java migration projects, as given some of the stuff the customers would need to write from scratch in modern .NET, they decided it was the right time to move away from Microsoft stack on the server infrastructure. It should be noted that it isn't an accident that Microsoft, after all these years, has acquired jClarity and is now an OpenJDK contributor. Who have thought to see this kind of stuff a few years ago? https://devblogs.microsoft.com/java/ https://devblogs.microsoft.com/java/ https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/31/microsoft_seeks_rust_developers/ https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/31/microsoft_seeks_rust_...

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

pjmlp 3y ago

They are only great for those of us that use Windows as our main desktop. Microsoft's scenario for non-Windows is clearly driven by Azure and mobile platforms. VSCode development experience is only done to be good enough to drive people into VS proper, as it has already been confirmed in a couple of podcast interviews, that there is no plan for feature parity. So if one wants feature parity with VS outside Windows shelling out money for Rider is the only option. Ironically Java still wins out in tooling, not only is InteliJ community free beer, there is Eclipse and Netbeans, while Red-Hat in collaboration with Microsoft, makes most of headless Eclipse run on VSCode, a much better experience than .NET on VSCode. Even the Python experience on VSCode is better. Additionally none of them have "pro" features gated by license, as in the .NET VSCode plugin. It feels like while .NET team tries to turn the ecosystem around into FOSS, management ie still pretty much into VS/Windows/Azure, with some carrots for other scenarios.