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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.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Marand on Friday May 01 2015, @02:25AM
I don't really care much for MS and this editor doesn't interest me, but it's cool that they're trying. It seems more like testing new waters than "embrace extend extinguish", trying different things to attract devs and mobile interest (like the android/iOS recompile thing).
I wanted to elaborate on this part a bit now that I'm at a physical keyboard.
I don't generally like Microsoft products, and I definitely dislike some of the tactics they've used against competition in the past, but I'm not foolish enough to think the other big players now would have done any different in the same situation. I don't want Microsoft to completely fail because it would leave a gap that, most likely, Google or Apple would fill. Considering how those two have acted without the 90% monopoly Microsoft had at its peak, I don't doubt they'd be even worse than 90's MS given the same monopoly position.
I'd rather have a weakened Microsoft, which is what we seem to be seeing now. All three (Apple, MS, Google) have their own platforms and none is completely dominant. That makes cross-platform development attractive, which means it's easier to choose the OS you want instead of being stuck with only one option. It may even lead to a resurgence of alternate OSes like we once had, before Amiga and BeOS and others got crushed by the Windows behemoth. There are signs of it in mobile, at least; Android and iOS are dominant, but Blackberry's still around, Windows phone has its dedicated fans, and outside of the US you can actually get things like Jolla or Ubuntu phones. (Aside from iOS, they all seem to be converging on Android compatibility as the cross-platform layer, for better or worse)
I think some people believe that, if MS falls, Linux would rise to fill its place and we'd have some kind of FOSS utopia. Bullshit. For that to happen, we'd need corporate interests to push it, getting their distros installed on hardware. Those businesses aren't going to be doing that for anyone's benefit but their own, though, and it would just encourage the creation of another OSX, Android, or ChromeOS: free software used as the base for yet another proprietary userland*. Also, anybody that's bitched about Linux being dumbed down over the years as it got easier to use? Yeah, that would continue to happen on a massive scale as businesses try to make the OS "friendlier" to the masses to maximise profit. I'd rather have the Linuxes and BSDs carve out a niche in a market that's split among multiple OSes, like they're doing. (Slightly larger than now maybe, but not at the cost of bowing to corporate interests.)
So, despite not particularly liking MS (or any of the other big players), I don't want them to fail, because the alternatives look worse.
* I wouldn't be surprised if MS tries this one day, if things get bad enough. Win32 and win64 are basically platforms on top of the OS, so it's not completely insane to imagine them, in desperation, trying to release a "Windows" software layer that works on top of other platforms such as OS X. Basically the inverse of what they're currently trying with iOS and Android compatibility. Would take some crazy desperation, though.