4 ms·

.NET, C# and Visual Studio

by romanovcode 13y ago

CmonDev 13y ago
Yes, the only reasonable alternative is Scala but there is no IDE for it to match VS and there won't be.
- streblo 13y ago
  IntelliJ IDEA is a really fantastic IDE for Scala/Java. I haven't used VS in ~6 years (and back then not deeply) so I don't have a great basis of comparison. But IntelliJ does a fantastic job and it's steadily improved over the years.
  - romanovcode 13y ago
    Yea, It's pretty good. But believe me - it has nothing on VS2013.
    - frowaway001 13y ago
      I'm always surprised when C# developers think VS is the best thing ever. Having used multiple languages and technologies, I'm not even slightly impressed by VS.
      - CmonDev 13y ago
        Everyone on HN used multiple languages and technologies. Have you used VS with ReSharper?
        vetinari 13y ago
        ReSharper is being made by the same company, that makes IntelliJ IDEA. They're trying to bring the goodies _from_ IDEA _to_ VS.
      - zequel 13y ago
        Then I don't think you've used VS much. Intellisense with tooltip comments, templates and code snippets. Most VS users haven't scratched the surface of its power. IntelliJ borrows a lot of the ideas from VS btw, their Resharper addon is excellent. I've also used XCode and Eclipse, they're poor men's versions of VS.
        mhast 13y ago
        Ehhhhh... I've use VisualStudio every day for the past years. And honestly there are a lot ideas they could borrow from other tools like Eclipse. Some examples that I personally feel are ways that C# in VS is lackluster compared to Java in Eclipse. No proper automatic build. While the stuff in Eclipse is a bit too aggressive sometimes it's really one of those really cool features to have. Errors, warnings, other tools like StyleCop don't show errors inline with the code. I mean, really? I have to scroll through the error list and click? It also doesn't really seem to understand the code it's processing. I'd expect that when I'm working on Silverlight with C# that the premiere tool from Microsoft should be able to handle things like refactoring properties in C# where it would update automatically in XAML. And this is not even mentioning the complete trainwreck that is MSDN. Perhaps you can understand it once you really get into it, but I find it extremely confusing the way it mixes different frameworks with similar but subtly different functionality. (Eg a lot of things in Windows Phone are similar, but not identical, to features in .Net and trying to find the "chain of classes" that are relevant to your code is not nearly easy enough.) Some of these things are probably things you can fix with extensions like Reshaper. But in the end you'll pay hundreds of dollars to compete with something that is free in Eclipse.
shmerl 13y ago
Neither is very useful if you need to support many platforms. Microsoft it too entrenched in their walled garden mentality. Cross platform development never will be their strong side and it's their downfall.
- romanovcode 13y ago
  Agree. That's why it would be good if they brought multi-platform support sooner or later. Still doesn't change the fact that these techs are one of the best ever made.
- _random_ 13y ago
  Incorrect, Xamarin is currently the best option for multi-platform development and it has a good Visual Studio integration.
  - romanovcode 13y ago
    Just imagine how fast it would become popular if you could host MVC5/WebApi on Linux.
    - _random_ 13y ago
      True :(
    - voltagex_ 13y ago
      http://www.mono-project.com/Compatibility http://www.mono-project.com/Compatibility MVC4 would be blocked by: > MVC4 - Partial, no async features supported. > ASP.NET 4.5 Async Pipeline - Needs an parallel processing pipeline with async support, not done.
    - itsboring 13y ago
      I switched to ServiceStack from WebApi just so I didn't have to develop on windows.
  - shmerl 13y ago
    Not really. C++ is way better in cross platform coverage.

.NET, C# and Visual Studio

CmonDev 13y ago

Yes, the only reasonable alternative is Scala but there is no IDE for it to match VS and there won't be.

streblo 13y ago
IntelliJ IDEA is a really fantastic IDE for Scala/Java. I haven't used VS in ~6 years (and back then not deeply) so I don't have a great basis of comparison. But IntelliJ does a fantastic job and it's steadily improved over the years.
- romanovcode 13y ago
  Yea, It's pretty good. But believe me - it has nothing on VS2013.
  - frowaway001 13y ago
    I'm always surprised when C# developers think VS is the best thing ever. Having used multiple languages and technologies, I'm not even slightly impressed by VS.
    - CmonDev 13y ago
      Everyone on HN used multiple languages and technologies. Have you used VS with ReSharper?
      - vetinari 13y ago
        ReSharper is being made by the same company, that makes IntelliJ IDEA. They're trying to bring the goodies _from_ IDEA _to_ VS.
    - zequel 13y ago
      Then I don't think you've used VS much. Intellisense with tooltip comments, templates and code snippets. Most VS users haven't scratched the surface of its power. IntelliJ borrows a lot of the ideas from VS btw, their Resharper addon is excellent. I've also used XCode and Eclipse, they're poor men's versions of VS.
      - mhast 13y ago
        Ehhhhh... I've use VisualStudio every day for the past years. And honestly there are a lot ideas they could borrow from other tools like Eclipse. Some examples that I personally feel are ways that C# in VS is lackluster compared to Java in Eclipse. No proper automatic build. While the stuff in Eclipse is a bit too aggressive sometimes it's really one of those really cool features to have. Errors, warnings, other tools like StyleCop don't show errors inline with the code. I mean, really? I have to scroll through the error list and click? It also doesn't really seem to understand the code it's processing. I'd expect that when I'm working on Silverlight with C# that the premiere tool from Microsoft should be able to handle things like refactoring properties in C# where it would update automatically in XAML. And this is not even mentioning the complete trainwreck that is MSDN. Perhaps you can understand it once you really get into it, but I find it extremely confusing the way it mixes different frameworks with similar but subtly different functionality. (Eg a lot of things in Windows Phone are similar, but not identical, to features in .Net and trying to find the "chain of classes" that are relevant to your code is not nearly easy enough.) Some of these things are probably things you can fix with extensions like Reshaper. But in the end you'll pay hundreds of dollars to compete with something that is free in Eclipse.

shmerl 13y ago

Neither is very useful if you need to support many platforms. Microsoft it too entrenched in their walled garden mentality. Cross platform development never will be their strong side and it's their downfall.

romanovcode 13y ago
Agree. That's why it would be good if they brought multi-platform support sooner or later. Still doesn't change the fact that these techs are one of the best ever made.
_random_ 13y ago
Incorrect, Xamarin is currently the best option for multi-platform development and it has a good Visual Studio integration.
- romanovcode 13y ago
  Just imagine how fast it would become popular if you could host MVC5/WebApi on Linux.
  - _random_ 13y ago
    True :(
  - voltagex_ 13y ago
    http://www.mono-project.com/Compatibility http://www.mono-project.com/Compatibility MVC4 would be blocked by: > MVC4 - Partial, no async features supported. > ASP.NET 4.5 Async Pipeline - Needs an parallel processing pipeline with async support, not done.
  - itsboring 13y ago
    I switched to ServiceStack from WebApi just so I didn't have to develop on windows.
- shmerl 13y ago
  Not really. C++ is way better in cross platform coverage.