Code auto-complete, when it works. Mono Well it’s pretty cool they support Mono, but my testing intellisense and autocomplete are not supported.
![Have Have](/uploads/1/2/5/6/125630723/767589857.gif)
It is.NET for Mac, for God’s sake. Why would you not put more effort into the code support here?
And in the course Visual Studio Development on a Mac, you'll witness the impact a virtual machine running Windows and Visual Studio has on its host, the Mac OS X. This smooth performance is in the details of Apple's hardware and the cleverness of the virtual machine software.
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, 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 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 Flickr Creative Commons.