Visual Studio Code Has Surprisingly Huge Linux Use & Other Developer Metrics

[DebianXFCE Jr]

... potentially leading more of them to buy RHEL contracts for serious production purposes.

Potentially is a key word here. There is Fedora Server edition, and in case of "serious production purposes" you can use CentOS in place of RH. Efforts made by MS can - for me are - be made in vain. You need a good reason to switch to their proprietary and non-free software. What's the point if you masterred oss and you know how it works already? 1. You don't pay any money. 2. You're focusing on further developement of your actual knowledge.

[skeevy420]

Note that there is nothing evil about this: AIUI, Fedora was originally started by RedHat because RH engineers convinced RH management that having a freely available, open source, rapidly updated test-bed would make it easier for potential customers to evaluate and get used to the RH ecosystem, potentially leading more of them to buy RHEL contracts for serious production purposes.

And there's nothing wrong with that model. I know that I wouldn't buy a car without test driving it first; just like I won't run an OS without a test install.

[DebianXFCE Jr]

VS Code isn't fully "open source" unless you use a cut down version which removes proprietary Microsoft code. Most people use the proprietary version. It is also worth mentioning that VS Code is a tool used to shove TypeScript down people's throats, which is a Microsoft product. I assume it wouldn't be as popular without the push provided by this editor.

You need to make a poll to prove that VS Code makes people use TypeScript. Just because it supports it doesn't mean a thing. I have no use for it, yet sometimes I use it myself. Maybe you're right about TypeScript's popularity but I would need legit data proving that then simply assume it.

[skeevy420]

Potentially is a key word here. There is Fedora Server edition, and in case of "serious production purposes" you can use CentOS in place of RH. Efforts made by MS can - for me are - be made in vain. You need a good reason to switch to their proprietary and non-free software. What's the point if you masterred oss and you know how it works already? 1. You don't pay any money. 2. You're focusing on further developement of your actual knowledge.

The good reason is you don't have to be a geek like us. You can call their support line and they'll remote in to your system and fix your problems, send you a bunch of stuff to copy/paste into a terminal to fix, give you step by step click this and that instructions, etc.

[Citan]

I really don't understand the hate about Visual Studio Code here.

1. "It's Microsoft".
And? It's absolutely IRRELEVANT here, unless you can prove they a) induce a bias in one way or another to favor their own langage (apart from having less functions for others) or b) they manage to spy on you and send that data to their servers.
Otherwise, whatever evil MS may be overall, it's no reason to not use a product that does not help them in any way (no data given, not even money given). One could even argue on reverse : the more people use the product, which let's remind is provided free of charge, the more they will spend to maintain it.

I think this is THE most salient point: Everything and anything Microsoft does that involves Open Source should be considered an on-ramp for buying their products and services. And everything related to WSL is not as much an on-ramp as it is a customer retention policy; it's MS trying to incentivise existing Windows shops to not jump ship to macOS or e.g. Ubuntu wholesale by making it easier to re-use skills learned on *nix when deploying to Linux-on-Azure from within a Windows environment.

Note that there is nothing evil about this: AIUI, Fedora was originally started by RedHat because RH engineers convinced RH management that having a freely available, open source, rapidly updated test-bed would make it easier for potential customers to evaluate and get used to the RH ecosystem, potentially leading more of them to buy RHEL contracts for serious production purposes.

Bolded part I completely agree though. And I disagree on the fact it's not evil (because I don't think the parallel with Red Hat is really pertinent), but that's off-topic. ^^

2. "It's bloated"
I don't know what you use to say that, especially the people who compared to Jetbrains products. Those are the elephants. VSC is a very nice middle-weight in terms of features/performances ratio among all I tried (from Eclipse/PhpStorm to Kate/Geany).

3. "It's too feature-light to be useful"
Well, that's all on everyone's taste of course... But I'll have to strongly disagree on that.
VSC provides...
- Ability to keep indefinitely "unsaved" files, which is a great poorman's alternative to dedicated tools for temporary copy spaces or on-the-fly quick drafts you don't know yet where to put.
- Black-based theme out-of-the-box, very readable and not agressing the eyes.
- Zoom in/out on the fly with keyboard shortcuts (something a product you pay >100$ fails to do, which is an impressive middle-finger in the face of their clients).
- All the essentials a rigorous mind needs to work fine (search&replace, coloration, line number, etc) in a well-designed, non intrusive interface.

Can it replace a full-fledged editor like PhpStorm? 1000 times not, at least out-of-the-box. Maybe it's achievable with plugins, but I'm not interested.
Does it mean it's useless? Absolutely not. When I want to work on a few isolated programs, or when I just want a clear and minimal interface to focus on my conception without needing multiple clics/shortcuts beforehand, it's the perfect tool for the job.
(Note : I'm working on PHP/JS/HTML/CSS projects and I've been entirely satisfied with the syntaxic engine so far. Whereas PHPStorm is not even able to properly color Twig templates. It's laughable).

[DebianXFCE Jr]

The good reason is you don't have to be a geek like us.

Who said I'm not a geek? It's always good to be rational. At one time you will be working in corp where you have Linux or Windows only. Other time you will end up in mixed environment. It's always good to know best tools for certain tasks, regerdless of it's origin. After all what employer you will you pick? The one who pays you less or more?

[DebianXFCE Jr]

I really don't understand the hate about Visual Studio Code here.

... b) they manage to spy on you and send that data to their servers. ...

... - Black-based theme out-of-the-box, very readable and not agressing the eyes. ...

Telemetry. But you can turn it off. And I agree on the theme. It is good. Not full colour palet like some tends to do, yet still dark and easy on the eyes.

[kpedersen]

you were right, visual studio doesn't run on linux. vscode is completely separate project

C'mon, I can't believe you fell for that Microsoft trick.

"We should use Visual Studio for this project, because I heard it also runs on Linux so won't lock us down to the Windows platform whatsoever" - A tricked developer.

how is it relevant for linux developers?
what linux developer survey had vs at the top spot?

Using a correct compiler is relevant for *all* developers.
The stack overflow survey was the one I was referencing. You should check it out.

[kpedersen]

Do you consider C# a bad language/tool because it was invented for MS, or by MS? Banshee, HandBreak, Open Dental, SharpDevelop, GNOME Do or Colectica are all written with C#. Probably people should stop using them. Same for Unity Engine which uses C# as a scripting language..

Yes. Based on my experiences with C# in the past with its poor collection of bindings, weak platform debugging support and limited selection of build tools, I will not be using C# again.

Hah, easy. Outside of Windows, C# is niche. All of those programs you mentioned *especially* GNOME and that consumer crap known as Un*ty, I will quite happily not use!

Simple

Was there a point you were trying to prove?

[DebianXFCE Jr]

... and that consumer crap known as Un*ty, I will quite happily not use!

Simple

Was there a point you were trying to prove?

You did it for me. Shadowrun trilogy: Returns + Dragonfall + Hong Kong, Wasteland 2, Ori and the Blind Forest or Battletech. All made with Unity. You are right. It's a consumer crap with which people can't make games and money. You're just a fanboy and not a reasonable person, that's all.