5 ms·

Honestly, WebAssembly with C#'s Blazor is the best development experience I've ever had. I can fully debug the front-end and back-end within Visual Studio.

maleldil 2y ago
But then you have to use Visual Studio.
- camdenreslink 2y ago
  Visual Studio is really good if you are doing C# development on Windows.
  - giancarlostoro 2y ago
    MonoDevelop was also really nice. So much so, it looks like they copied it into Visual Studio for Mac???[0] In any regard, C# has some of the richest tooling I've seen for any programming language, I do wish Microsoft would invest even marginally into MonoDevelop again. [0]: https://www.monodevelop.com/ https://www.monodevelop.com/
    - neonsunset 2y ago
      VS4Mac is MonoDevelop. Well, it was - VS4Mac is dead now as it has been stagnating, and at the end of its life was likely more harmful to .NET adoption by developers using macOS. Its niche is now replaced by VS Code, particularly after base C# extension switched to Roslyn LSP from Omnisharp, and, of course, Rider which has been a strong cross-platform offering for a long time. With that said, I heard only positive things about MonoDevelop back in the day and my impression from the feedback is that it was something its authors really put care into. I suppose it is part of history now. On Blazor - both Rider and VS Code support it. Contrary to the belief of slowly but surely diminishing group of developers that think .NET is still stuck in Windows land, there is nothing that ties you to Windows here.
      - pjmlp 2y ago
        Not really. The original VS4Mac was Mono Develop. Afterwards the team started to share code between Visual Studio and VS4Mac, written in .NET Standard libraries, until they started the full rewrite, using .NET Core proper with Cocoa bindings, as the team did not consider MAUI with Catalyst mature enough for the rewrite. Only to have the project cancelled and replaced by our Electron shell friend, after they reached the 1.0 of the rewrite efforts. Which still doesn't have the graphical tooling and storyboards integration from VS4Mac. Most folks are rather adopting Rider.
        giancarlostoro 2y ago
        > Afterwards the team started to share code between Visual Studio and VS4Mac, written in .NET Standard libraries, until they started the full rewrite, using .NET Core proper with Cocoa bindings, as the team did not consider MAUI with Catalyst mature enough for the rewrite. Do you have a source for this? I really love these historical dev tidbits. Would love to read some of the talks on it. My understanding was that ultimately they used C++ code from the original VS itself for the new VS4Mac eventually.
- giancarlostoro 2y ago
  One of the best IDE's I've ever used. JetBrains IDE's come close, but Visual Studio is a gem.
  - maleldil 2y ago
    IMO, it's somewhat polarising. Some people love it, but I personally can't stand it. It feels too heavy, trying to dominate every aspect of writing code. I prefer lightweight editors, but I recognise it's a personal thing.
    - anakaine 2y ago
      Its totally a personal thing. I feel VS Code is the right combination of light weight, light touch, and keeps my focus where I need it whilst still having the ability to get to helpers that make life easier.
  - noworriesnate 2y ago
    Visual Studio is nice but I vastly prefer Rider, even on Windows. It feels bit snappier, especially when you're comparing Visual Studio + Resharper versus Rider. TBH this is probably a matter of what is familiar though.
    - giancarlostoro 2y ago
      I use Rider on other platforms.
pjmlp 2y ago
The 2nd coming of Web Forms, or Silverlight, take your pick.
- giancarlostoro 2y ago
  In the case of WASM though, does it really matter? Ideally I want to see other languages do the same thing.
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    It matters when debugging pile of WASM code, and the performance loss switching back and forth to JavaScript engine. The very reason I haven't bothered that much with Blazor, are my debugging scars from Web Forms and JSF. Given the choice, I will go with stuff that works directly with script tags and the built-in developer tools.
bouncing 2y ago
I'm curious what widgets/frontend tooling you use. This is, I assume, Visual Studio for Windows. Have you tried it at all in VS Code or is that a non-starter?

maleldil 2y ago

But then you have to use Visual Studio.

camdenreslink 2y ago
Visual Studio is really good if you are doing C# development on Windows.
- giancarlostoro 2y ago
  MonoDevelop was also really nice. So much so, it looks like they copied it into Visual Studio for Mac???[0] In any regard, C# has some of the richest tooling I've seen for any programming language, I do wish Microsoft would invest even marginally into MonoDevelop again. [0]: https://www.monodevelop.com/ https://www.monodevelop.com/
  - neonsunset 2y ago
    VS4Mac is MonoDevelop. Well, it was - VS4Mac is dead now as it has been stagnating, and at the end of its life was likely more harmful to .NET adoption by developers using macOS. Its niche is now replaced by VS Code, particularly after base C# extension switched to Roslyn LSP from Omnisharp, and, of course, Rider which has been a strong cross-platform offering for a long time. With that said, I heard only positive things about MonoDevelop back in the day and my impression from the feedback is that it was something its authors really put care into. I suppose it is part of history now. On Blazor - both Rider and VS Code support it. Contrary to the belief of slowly but surely diminishing group of developers that think .NET is still stuck in Windows land, there is nothing that ties you to Windows here.
    - pjmlp 2y ago
      Not really. The original VS4Mac was Mono Develop. Afterwards the team started to share code between Visual Studio and VS4Mac, written in .NET Standard libraries, until they started the full rewrite, using .NET Core proper with Cocoa bindings, as the team did not consider MAUI with Catalyst mature enough for the rewrite. Only to have the project cancelled and replaced by our Electron shell friend, after they reached the 1.0 of the rewrite efforts. Which still doesn't have the graphical tooling and storyboards integration from VS4Mac. Most folks are rather adopting Rider.
      - giancarlostoro 2y ago
        > Afterwards the team started to share code between Visual Studio and VS4Mac, written in .NET Standard libraries, until they started the full rewrite, using .NET Core proper with Cocoa bindings, as the team did not consider MAUI with Catalyst mature enough for the rewrite. Do you have a source for this? I really love these historical dev tidbits. Would love to read some of the talks on it. My understanding was that ultimately they used C++ code from the original VS itself for the new VS4Mac eventually.
giancarlostoro 2y ago
One of the best IDE's I've ever used. JetBrains IDE's come close, but Visual Studio is a gem.
- maleldil 2y ago
  IMO, it's somewhat polarising. Some people love it, but I personally can't stand it. It feels too heavy, trying to dominate every aspect of writing code. I prefer lightweight editors, but I recognise it's a personal thing.
  - anakaine 2y ago
    Its totally a personal thing. I feel VS Code is the right combination of light weight, light touch, and keeps my focus where I need it whilst still having the ability to get to helpers that make life easier.
- noworriesnate 2y ago
  Visual Studio is nice but I vastly prefer Rider, even on Windows. It feels bit snappier, especially when you're comparing Visual Studio + Resharper versus Rider. TBH this is probably a matter of what is familiar though.
  - giancarlostoro 2y ago
    I use Rider on other platforms.

pjmlp 2y ago

The 2nd coming of Web Forms, or Silverlight, take your pick.

giancarlostoro 2y ago
In the case of WASM though, does it really matter? Ideally I want to see other languages do the same thing.
- pjmlp 2y ago
  It matters when debugging pile of WASM code, and the performance loss switching back and forth to JavaScript engine. The very reason I haven't bothered that much with Blazor, are my debugging scars from Web Forms and JSF. Given the choice, I will go with stuff that works directly with script tags and the built-in developer tools.

bouncing 2y ago

I'm curious what widgets/frontend tooling you use. This is, I assume, Visual Studio for Windows. Have you tried it at all in VS Code or is that a non-starter?