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posted by janrinok on Thursday April 30 2015, @09:07PM   Printer-friendly
from the head-in-the-cloud dept.

MS Releases "Visual Studio Code" - a Slim Cross Platform Code Editor

Microsoft appears like they may actually be starting to get serious about cross platform support. Their new slim code editor for developing cloud applications supports both OS X and Linux, as well as Windows.

At its Build developer conference, Microsoft today announced the launch of Visual Studio Code, a lightweight cross-platform code editor for writing modern web and cloud applications that will run on OS X, Linux and Windows. The application is still officially in preview, but you can now download it here (if this link isn’t live yet, give it a few more minutes and then try again).

This marks the first time that Microsoft offers developers a true cross-platform code editor. The full Visual Studio is still Windows-only, but today’s announcement shows the company’s commitment to supporting other platforms.

From the Techcrunch article:

Today’s announcement will surely come as a surprise to many. It does, however, fit in well with the direction the company’s developer group has been on for quite a while now, be that the open sourcing of .NET Core (and taking that platform cross-platform) or the launch of the free Visual Studio Community edition.

Another Publicity Stunt from MSFT: "Visual Studio Code"

Roy Schestowitz at TechRights reports "Visual Studio Code": Not News, Not Free, Not Open Source

Another publicity stunt from Microsoft, this time going under the name "Visual Studio Code", which is basically proprietary lock-in

Despite an openwashing campaign and an effort to deceive the public (as chronicled here before), Visual Studio is (and will remain) proprietary. There is currently yet another PR blitz from Microsoft, which at the moment is trying to openwash it and pretend that it's "news" (it's not, it goes back to last year).

Sadly, some FOSS proponents have already fallen for it and Phoronix is doing marketing for Microsoft. This is not really news and it's not even a surprise. It's just some publicity stunt which got Microsoft boosters and Microsoft-friendly sites on board.

 
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by mtrycz on Thursday April 30 2015, @09:41PM

    by mtrycz (60) on Thursday April 30 2015, @09:41PM (#177271)

    I'm not a MS fanboy, but let me play the devils advocatehere. The article thats calling out that this is not news also claims that it's "not free, not open source".

    Now, I think it's ok for anyone to build programs and give them for free, and it's their choice to open it up or not. (unless it's spyware, obv)

    But in what sense it's "not free"? What are the details of "lock-in" the author is claming? Isn't it just an editor? I'm all aware of lock-in and try my best to avoid it (collegues at work are giving a go to Google APIs, because "it gets the job done". facepalm)

    If we're going to hate on Microsoft, let's do it for relevant reasons.

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  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @09:50PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @09:50PM (#177276)

    Microsoft has been openly antagonistic and is known for having punitive licensing or dropping support for a product. They are essentially what Google is aspiring towards.

  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @10:33PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @10:33PM (#177293)

    Now, I think it's ok for anyone to build programs and give them for free, and it's their choice to open it up or not. (unless it's spyware, obv)

    And thanks to the way this company spoons with the NSA, we can be super-duper ultra-confident that there won't be any code in this compiler that injects a backdoor into any application you're thinking of creating with it.

    ( cf. http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?TheKenThompsonHack [c2.com] )

    • (Score: 2) by mtrycz on Friday May 01 2015, @09:31AM

      by mtrycz (60) on Friday May 01 2015, @09:31AM (#177414)

      Oh yeah, I love "trusting trust". The insight it gave me the first time I read it was what hooked me up to security problems.

      Anyway it looks like it's an editor, not an IDE, and it comes without a compiler. So unless it can scramble your sources in some stealthy indetectable ways (it can't), it should be safe for that.

      The only problem I could see with it is that they make a great product that everybody ends up using and THEN they start to lock you in. But it's not a necessary outcome; we'll see.

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    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Nuke on Friday May 01 2015, @11:59AM

      by Nuke (3162) on Friday May 01 2015, @11:59AM (#177428)

      It isn't a compiler.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by aristarchus on Thursday April 30 2015, @11:30PM

    by aristarchus (2645) on Thursday April 30 2015, @11:30PM (#177313) Journal

    If we're going to hate on Microsoft, let's do it for relevant reasons.

    Isn't that any and all of them? Once an organization has become pure evil, there no longer are any irrelevant reasons to oppose it. I think Microsoft has completely underestimated the bad will their past practices have generated, bad will that no amount of "openwashing" will be able to remove.

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by frojack on Thursday April 30 2015, @11:43PM

    by frojack (1554) on Thursday April 30 2015, @11:43PM (#177318) Journal

    Well, I installed it, but as editors go, its pretty lame and limited.

    Untruths found in TFS Above:

    Its not free. Truth: It is free - as in beer.
    Its a lock in. Truth: there is no lock in.

    Its a stand alone editor, not a particularly intuitive one, not better than anything that comes free on Linux.
    See the basics without having to install it: https://code.visualstudio.com/Docs/codebasics [visualstudio.com]

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    • (Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Friday May 01 2015, @05:54AM

      by dyingtolive (952) on Friday May 01 2015, @05:54AM (#177377)

      That's disappointing. I have no love for MS, but I saw this and had hoped it would be something noteworthy.

      As a confession, I've made things in C# before and kind of liked it. I mean, now, I use almost exclusively python and java, but it's just an editor? Not a compiler too? It looks like it depends on mono, is that right?

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    • (Score: 1) by mtrycz on Friday May 01 2015, @09:26AM

      by mtrycz (60) on Friday May 01 2015, @09:26AM (#177413)

      So the message here is "here, have this half-assed editor and see how much open we are?".

      Thanks for the insights. I was about to give it a try, but I have more important things to do now.

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      • (Score: 2) by frojack on Friday May 01 2015, @11:11AM

        by frojack (1554) on Friday May 01 2015, @11:11AM (#177423) Journal

        Yeah, pretty much any editor is at least as good or better. I uninstalled it.

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        • (Score: 3, Funny) by Nuke on Friday May 01 2015, @12:01PM

          by Nuke (3162) on Friday May 01 2015, @12:01PM (#177429)

          But isn't this exactly what the world needs - another editor?