Visual Studio for Mac enables the creation of.NET Core solutions, providing the back-end services to your client solutions. Code, debug, and test these cloud services simultaneously with your client solutions for increased productivity. Visual Studio for Mac enables developers to create applications using.NET and C# only. Visual Studio for Mac should also provide support for C++ development, using compilers available on the system (gcc, Clang, etc.). Visual Studio is a new member of the Visual Studio family, enabling developers on macOS to build apps for mobile, Web, and cloud with Xamarin and.NET Core, as well as games with Unity. Use Visual Studio to develop apps for Android, macOS, iOS, tvOS, watchOS, Web, and cloud.
A few months ago I heard “Visual Studio is coming for Mac.” At first, I did not believe the person who told me. But once I gained confidence in their sensibilities, I was thrilled. And now that it has arrived … well, it really isn’t Visual Studio for Mac. This is Visual Studio Code.
The idea was great. I was going to dump my slow Windows 7 box containing my decked out Visual Studio 2012 — extensions and all — and my dev onto my super fast 4K iMac. All without conceding to Boot Camp; but it looks like that time has not yet come.
Visual Studio Code is an integrated development environment (IDE) that runs on Mac — as well as Linux and Windows (for some reason). But Visual Studio it is not.
I gave it a good three hours of testing: the install was easy, until I needed to update Mono. And opening the first project from GitHub was easy as well. Here is what I found:
Pros
Light Weight
Yep, it is totally light. It is all about get in, code, commit and leave. Which is nice, because if you are used to Visual Studio, you know it can be very heavy. Visual Studio Code takes much less time to launch, and auto-complete is way faster.
JSON Settings
Love the fact that all settings for the IDE are project-based and JSON files.
Search
C++ Visual Studio 2017 For Mac
The search interface is really nice. It is responsive and supports Regex.
Cons
Language Support
For the supported languages — JSON, CSS, HTML, {less}, and Node.js — intellisense and autocomplete work. And it’s fast. But for other languages, like PHP, all you get is syntax highlighting.
Mono
Well it’s pretty cool they support Mono, but my testing intellisense and autocomplete are not supported. It is .NET for Mac, for God’s sake. Why would you not put more effort into the code support here?
Build my Code!
You can only run Mono and Node.js projects. Which is pretty confusing, as the language support is not great for Mono, but you can debug for it. This was a freebie for them. All they do is call your locally installed mono compiler, which does the work. It is not likely, even with the really cute debug icon, you will be doing any debugging.
It was a bit of a let down, but it is still neat. The actual use cases must be pretty limited. I’m picturing a small team, or working on a very small component quickly. But I do not see Visual Studio Code replacing the developer’s dedicated IDE. Nor do I see it being used in any sustained capacity.
So why does it exist? I think it’s mostly a marketing play. It certainly was developed well. But likely it was the the path of least resistance, to see how their all-important “Developer Tools” focus was going to fit into Linux and Mac. It also builds confidence in Microsoft’s reconciliation with other applications. If I am Microsoft, I’m watching the download numbers and reviewing all feedback to simply gauge the reality of people using it. If you can get developers across any platform addicted to an IDE, then you have an “in” for the entire VSO suite.
But I also get this weird feeling, which I also got at Build 2015, that Microsoft and Xamarin are up to something. Although on so many levels they are competitors, they go out of their way to work together. And the more Microsoft places products on the same machine as Xamarin tools, the better. Conspiracy, much?
So I do not get to dump my Dell just yet, and at this pace I might fully move to a Cloud IDE before I do Visual Studio Code. I think it’s worth a try. But after a few hours you will get the gist. And honestly, if you have the Git client installed and need to make a quick change to your code before bed, it’s great.
Feature image via Flickr Creative Commons.
Microsoft has released Visual Studio for Mac Version 7.6, focused on reliability, particularly in code editing.
Improvements also have been made in performance and support for Azure cloud functions. New templates enable publishing of a function to Azure. But Microsoft emphasized code editing with the Version 7.6 release.
Improvements in the code editing include:
- JavaScript syntax highlighting has been improved.
- IntelliSense has been improved for developers using the F# language, with the resolution of an issue in which “.” could not be used for autocompletion.
- An IntelliSense problem was fixed in which red squiggles persisted even when there were no errors,
- A fix was made to an issue in which Quick Fix items were not being displayed if source analysis was disabled.
- A situation where tooltips would not disappear was fixed.
For the IDE, Microsoft improved tag-based classification for C#, reusing Visual Studio for Windows code. This is expected to improve typing performance in the editor. Also, to speed up NuGet restore on solution loads, no-op restore of NuGet packages is supported during opening of a solution. Startup time has been improved in the IDE and memory consumption reduced.
For Azure Functions, providing event-driven compute services on demand in a serverless fashion, Version 7.6 has templates for configuring access rights, connection strings, and other binding properties. The upgrade also lets developers publish functions to the Azure Portal. Developers can right-click on project name and choose Publish > Publish to Azure.
Where to download Visual Studio for Mac
Visual Studio C++ Macro Expansion
You can download Visual Studio for Mac from Microsoft’s Visual Studio project site.