For the record, I still find the licensing they used for this a terrible idea on a personal level. Still, since not everyone shares that opinion with me, I decided to not present it as the de-facto opinion, especially given that I am actually a Rider user, not a VS user so such an opinion would look suspicious to many people.
Odd move to take down a video where you feel your opinion wasn't the same as everyone else. Just because it might be a concern for a minority of people, it still is a valid one, in my opinion
I've got to say that I'm with you on the licensing thing. If it has the same license as VS, then it makes sense to compare it to the features VS has to offer. This is a nice change if you're doing open source, but I guess I'll still stick with rider as my idea of choice for work.
@@Kirtle An honest, ranting screed is nice for some audiences, but I guess Nick wants to focus on putting out actually useful information rather than getting rage clicks.
i agree the licensing is pretty fucked and feel pretty strongly about that too. in feel similarly strongly about VS and Rider, but it feels like a particularly shitty thing to inject into a thriving FOSS dev ecosystem when it's literally just basic language support you would hope is there to begin with. I feel like it sets a bad precedent that i hope others are not inspired to follow. for context I am an avid Rider user, though that would change if this extension or a jetbrains plugin would fill the gap. it's ok to opt for the best tools for their job despite their developer's licensing schemes, and I don't think it's inherently hypocritical. just considering how VSCode is Microsoft's main "hey look guys we like and support open source !!" project, this is a particularly bad look watch from now MSFT will always be a "look we're open source!!.... except for the AI bits" company. which is entirely missing the point. AI powered tools are especially important to expose, even if they don't release the model.
Did not see enough good points that were not mentioned yesterday to justify this much of a change in the tone. The only new thing you said was the test ui.
I think I can see where it is going. Most of good features now would not come in omnisharp open source extension rather in closed source dev kit. This a very very bad move by Microsoft. Atleast the vs code experience should be free and open source. I don't think the official extension of any popular language in vs code is paid or closed source so why C#?
@@teo-tsirpanis Then it has to be paid. VS code is known for a free and open opensource experience for any langauge. Why can't C# have a good free and opensource experience inside vs code? Btw 45$/month is not at all cheap for only an extension.
@@zhh174 VS Code itself as Microsoft distributes it is not even open source though. They want you to believe it with vague marketing, but it is listed explicitly as not open source if you check their FAQ. The basis, which you can build your own version from, is though, but they add some other stuff to their distribution as well.
Hi Nick, hope you see this, I saw in the comments a lot of people who think you changed your mind for all kinds of reasons, and don't understand that you just wanted to present the plugins in a different way because the license didn't bother most people. And some of the comments were written in a less nice way, So just ignore them... By the way, this is my opinion on the plugins: I am a software engineering student and we are learning C# and also web development, I used VS for C#, and VSC for web development, So I experienced both and always found VSC much more comfortable than VS, VS is heavy and clunky, And VSC is lightweight, fast, customizable, and I'm also used to his keyboard shortcuts, So if the development experience in C# was at the same level in VSC as in VS (or at least enough for me as a beginner) I would definitely use VSC, So when you introduced the new plugins yesterday I immediately tried them, But even though I really prefer the use of VSC, I think it is not yet mature enough to move to full development in VSC A few things that bothered me - When creating the project, there is no options beyond choosing a name, and that is quite lacking... - When I created an API project with VSC it was created with the usual template as I would create it in VS - including with Swagger in program.cs, but the Swagger package was not installed so that the code has errors from the beginning (until I install the package manually) - Which leads me to the next point - there is no interface for installing NuGet packages, and of course you can manage without it and install through the terminal, but for me as a beginner it is more complex... - Another thing, when creating a file there is no template for creating a controller, which requires creating a regular class, and manually adding inheritance from controller and the attributes... - I also did not see an option to add a project to the dependencies in the menus So all in all, as I said, I would summarize it as a tool that is not yet mature enough, especially for me as a beginner who uses the initial templates, and the user interface, Maybe for those who are already an expert in C# and know exactly the structure of the files, and know all the parts of the application and what they do, will be able to use this. I hope it will improve - because as I wrote, I prefer VSC and one last thing The default VSC folder icons are not comfortable enough imo, so if you or anyone wants to improve their visibility, there is the Material Icon Theme plugin, which imo has a much more comfortable design
I'm guessing they are reusing some of their old intellisense / Visual Studio sourcecode in there which has never been open source, so it may not be easy to just open-souce it without a risk of leaking company data etc. Also, doing licensing in an open-source component isnt exactly easy either.
Any general-purpose programming language aiming for long-term relevance must include at least one robust, cross-platform integrated development environment (IDE) that developers can utilize professionally, free from paywalls. Alternatively, if not offered for free, there should be pricing options that consider purchasing power parity. After all, $1000 may hold different value for individuals in the US/EU compared to those in Latin America, Africa, or Asia. Maintaining a language requires a company or organization to prioritize the trust and goodwill of its users, avoiding excessive greed. Microsoft's past shortcomings in addressing these factors have contributed to Java's ongoing global popularity over C#. It is crucial for VS Code to remain freely accessible and available across platforms. Additionally, concerted efforts should be made to develop a commercial version of Visual Studio for Linux while enhancing Mac support. Such measures would undoubtedly satisfy a wide range of users, fostering a positive scenario for all.
I think that's another great tool for me to use. I prefer VS Code over VS, because for work I use a lot of different languages and this new extension just makes it more handy to do high level solution stuff. Don't really care about the license yet.
Oh my God thank you. I've been trying to switch from Visual Studio to VS Code for C# because I already use VS Code for all my other programming. But I could NOT figure out how to access Soltuion Explorer. You saved my sanity :D
One of the biggest differences between Code and VS is that Code dropped the whole "Visual programming" motif with heavy mouse dependency and a "design surface". They're in the process of returning to keyboard-driven, so Code has the command palette and easily searchable settings in JSON, and evrything is ASCII. Microsoft is dealing with a decades-long u-turn on the fantasy of thinking that clicking and dragging pictures with your mouse is faster than typing words.
Decades-long Visual Studio u-turn is similar to their decades long Internet Explorer u-turn. (remember how much fun we had developing websites when IE was in circulation?) Chuck it in the bin and stick it on something open source that wasn't written by MS, and hey presto, things work like they should. Visual Studio = IE and VSCode = Edge. And decades waiting for files to open in VS, and "failed to load project", and needing a restart when it shits the bed every five minutes, and taking aaaages opening any 'big' project. VS code plus dotnet cli is so much faster and more reliable.
@@marklnz Go into any modern coding shop and you'll see command line terminals open everywhere. The most advanced new AI product has a command line interface. That's what the thing is. Text-based interfaces are more portable and interoperable. Shortcut keys are WAY FASTER than mousing and losing the homerow keys.
@@marklnz yes, that's my observation. From that, i draw another observation: that the most flexible innovation medium is the word, not the image. Words are also more portable and composable. It's easier to say "dotnet create console --lang fsharp" than to describe the mouse movements and click-steps that need to be taken. Words are more expressive than emojis 🤷
@@marklnz the phrase is "a picture tells a thousand stories". Have YOU heard it? Sometimes you want to tell ONE story, or you want your code to do ONE thing, not a thousand things.
As I mentioned in yesterday's video: Microsoft found a way to be Microsoft (as almost all of these big tech companies do). It's insane, IMO, to have a free editor with an extension that you need to pay for!
In their defense, VS Code is basically a free shell application with some free plug-ins. Anyone can sell plug-ins for VS Code. Why not Microsoft? It would be like giving away Windows and selling applications for it, or offer free Android with a Play store that has both free and paid apps in it.
That's true. I just think it would actually help them grow C# if they didn't decide to charage people in every single way they can. "modern" languages (Go and Rust for example) work perfectly everywhere because they have nice small tools to contribute to the whole experience. With Microsoft locking in tools for C#, I personally they're hurting the language instead of popularizing it
I'm not saying they're bad, per se. I'd personally never use a paid extension no matter how good it is (unless I absolutely HAVE TO, which thankfully hasn't happened until now) What I'm trying to say is that, at least for Microsoft, it "could" be a nice strategy to give out these things for free (pretty sure they have LOTS of sources for income other than this), which would help spread the language and convince people to use it because they can have a great dev experience similar to other FREE languages like Rust and Go.
One of the Riders best features is the Configurations Manager. With it I can start a dozen of apps in one click, restart individual ones. Once VS Code can do that I'm all in
This is a great start but there's a long way to go. I prefer using VS Code nowadays but I still need VS for connected services (SOAP/OData) and reverse nuget package search (getting a package suggested after typing something that's not imported yet), although the former is the main reason I haven't fully switches to VS Code yet. That and maybe project templates as I cba using the cli for those.
definitely concerned with the licence. i probably won't use this plugin in case i get too dependent on it. i'm sure that will be the case with new dotnet devs that try it. i just cancelled my rider licence and came over to vscode because I love the ai plugins and i'm happy using the dotnet command line tool. was hoping there was something introduced in this video that i could use but i probably wont due to the licence. im with you on your point of view on this
Yeah, same for me. The organization I work for is already paying for VS2022, but I'm still using VS Code for C# for lightweight stuff. The plugin is really nice, but paying for it simply doesn't make sense for me in this case.
Excelent information. I shy away from VS Code in favor of VSpro because I don't like the command line driven interactions required by VScode. But this seams to do a lot to bring parity between them, and I'm sure it'll get better. This will let me do more coding on my Mac when Im away from home too.
Vs code solution explorer is free extension that can be use it, provides functionality like visual studio solution explorer tree and doing almost samething
I agree with your take on the license. JetBrains Fleet is really coming along for C# development and it even has an integrated AI assistant with the latest update. It’s still in preview and we’re still waiting on plug-in support, but it’s wicked fast and it, too, will be cheaper than buying the license for this from MS. This is great news for JetBrains.
@@isuckatthisgame that’s true. Rider, JetBrains IDE for C# is not free; however the license for it is cheaper than an MS license, even for organizations (at least at the time I wrote that comment).
I was actually thinking of making a video about this very topic. It just makes sense to use the Dev Kit as a replacement of VS for Mac and also allow Linux users to have the same experience
@@nickchapsas Better make sure it works first. It looks like the Solution Explorer gets confused about the dotnet version. There is a ticket in for it that is active in the last couple of days
Edit: I should have watched the entire video and my question will have been answered Original: Is there still a Licencing concern with the new plugins using the Visual Studio License. I watched your video on this yesterday, or the day before.
My workplace uses VS 2022 Enterprise so I don't think this effects me professionally. I also still use Community personally, and am comfortable with it. I use VS Code to bring up one-off files (.cs and .sql for example) that are outside the solution I'm working on in VS, so for that reason I've never added extensions to VS Code. So I guess no problem for me. I hope more people are able to use this though since it really sounds promising for "simpler" projects. Thanks Nick.
VSCode is OK for non-Windows (non-PC) people. I also use VS and it's still No1 on my list. Tried Rider but it killed my CPU just for simple code editing.
i'm really happy for this working out cause c# is on my list of programing languages i want to learn as a backend dev an i've been using it for a while so it will good to have it close to home
I thought your other video was very good. There is an issue with cost and how to handle it, and how to trade, and how to exchange value for value, and how to evaluate the exchange and all that entails. The pricing model will drive some people out of C#, but what is the quality of totally gratis development environments? How well are they developed and improved? How should developers think about paying for development? Many software developers have a serious problem of thinking that software should be free, but they should be payed.
The main problem with the OG C# (omnisharp) extension was that it just dies every now and then, you can working for an hour and suddenly intellisense won't work and you have to restart VSCode etc, I just hope this new extension is reliable enough. Btw, this intellisense issue actually occurs in their flagship VS as well but very very occasionally, I find that VSCode intellisense is more "less intrusive" and receptive, only issue was it just dies every now and then. So I hope the new extension addresses this sudden death issue, excited to try it out. but why build the new extension with all the fixed closed source, come on. Just hope it eas worth it. We can probably see the code if we want to though. Personally I used VSCode to get used to the dotnet command line, I wish the context menu commands generated terminal code below, or an option to enable that :(, VSCode is about more flexibility right. Also I'm kind of comcerned, somwthing so big happned yet I was not in the loop? How to get these newses quickly, like from MS.
Instead of restarting VS Code when the language server dies you can ctrl+shift+p and type "restart omnisharp" or something similar (I'm on mobile now so not 100% sure of the command :)
@@rCinCLined thanks :), I just hope I don't have to do that often, you don't know what you don't know and somtimes when intellisense isnt working it prones writing a few lines that are syntactically wrong..and wastes time, lets hope this extension good.
I've always wondered if VS Code will replace VS at some point in the future (far future) . Wonder if Microsoft or any of their devs have mentioned such plan
As always at MSFT, they don‘t know that either, or cannot come to terms. It just goes on like this for a long while, until one time when it‘s obvious, only then they will make an announcement (maybe). Like with the downfall of UWP, it still is advertised in the official docs as “UWP is a powerful tool for creating client apps.”. (nonetheless they didn’t update the platform for years and it’s stuck with netstandard 2.0!)
@@innerbytes Yeah, never underestimate Microsoft's ability to fuck up good things. I can't think of a single thing the last 3 years where Microsoft has changed something for the better. Literally everything they do has gotten worse.
5:06 "Since it is made by Microsoft we know it's going to be well supported"... bruh... since when are Microsoft supporting their free stuff? In fact, they're barely supporting their paid stuff, especially not "well".
idk what you're talking about honestly, i've been coding c# for the past 6 month excursively on linux with vscode, it's honestly better that way as you're forced to do things manually and always know what's happening in the background
Nick, I am curious: Why did you decide to take down yesterday's video? Was it just TH-cam comments and the like/dislike ratio? Or were you actually contacted by someone from a certain corporation?
The like/dislike ratio was 98% positive, but if peopel in the comments thought that licensing wasn't so much of a big deal, then I was probably on the wrong
@@nickchapsas Most likely is a bias. People are more inclined to comment in things they disagree. Like me, I completely agreed with the video from yesterday, but I did not comment, and I disagree a lot with this one. Now I'm commenting hahaha
@@PauloDanielCarneiro Maybe it is but it also looks like a weaker point from my end because I am a Rider user. If i was a VS user and I made the same video then it would have been received better I'm sure
I simply won't be bothering with this. For C# I'll stick to the proper IDE's. My IDE, for all my life, has been VS and I'll stick to it. Though, in my younger years it was VS + Resharper. These days, my company won't pay for it, so it's just VS Enterprise. JS/TS however --> VS Code over VS, since VS sucks for anything JS/TS. Somehow such an expensive product has managed to keep a very sub-par experience on that for years now.
it is a great tool if you are working with a lot of microservices and you just need to check something. Instead of opening VS/Rider you can just quickly open up VSC and you are done :)
most wanted feature i would like in VS code or VS 2022 is dump feature and export any data collections like that of LinqPad , its very helpful for those working in data related tasks, VS2022 now has IEnumerable Visualizer so kind of helpful but its not seamlesss expierence way to connect to Sql and then work on some C# logic and then export (csv,excel) like that of Linqpad
I completely get Dev Kit to be closed source and licensed. It is a good move by Microsoft to monetize VS Code with the features of Visual Studio. It is a business at the end. What I don't get is in VS Code we have go, rust, dart, typescript etc... and all of those are free with good tooling(testing, commands in palette etc). I expect Microsoft to do the same, standard features should be free. There should not be any arguing with that. If Microsoft wants to monetize something they can monetize advanced features of Visual Studio such as IntelliCode, SQL integrations or whatever features enterprises use these days. I am sorry about the current situation but most of the new startups/scaleups chose either go, nodejs, flutter and with this kind of decisions lately I don't expect any change.
I don't think you were wrong in your previous video. Is visual Studio somehow Microsoft's cash cow? They should make it free like apple gives away xcode.
Sorry to sound like an idiot, but regarding the license, is this covered under your visual studio subscription or would it be an additional subscription? I already have a VS subscription through work so just wondering if I would be covered to use this at work or no?
I'm worried that the scope and purpose of VS Code is going to get confused with the main purpose of VS Studio. Perhaps the venn diagram between these is already overlapped too much, and MS is thinking the plugin architecture of code is much better than studio? Or is the same "plugin functionality" used in both? Either way, I'm confused as a developer which too focus on, or do I need to be skilled up on both? If so, where is the delineation between them?
Great overview and take on the release of this. Something I seem to have lost is the ability to switch between active projects when I have a directory open with multiple projects. That is when I'm just using the C# extension (no dev kit). Why is that?
I code for fun (not for profit and my projects are either open source or the projects are completely private (what I mean about private is I am the only one who has access to the binaries or source) (some of these may be open sourced if I ever make them public) (so I assume this plugin is OK, I use the normal vscode not vscodium so aparently I am OK with properitary as long as it does not conflict with what I am trying to do) (but hopefully my personal scripting language matures enough for me to switch to it, so I don't need to use Microsoft's software anymore)
After installing this, every time i try to run one of the commands i get an "csdevkit command not found" error. Any ideas what could be causing this? Solved: Update the C# extension (not c# dev kit) to pre release version. Or just wait until microsoft update it properly
I wonder if a VS license entitles you to this DevKit or if you'd have to pay for both? One other benefit here is a single IDE for someone who works with Typescript for frontend and C# for backend.
I like VS Code better than VS. You can use it with any folder, not just projects, and when you add a file to a folder you can see it in the editor. Better support for Notebooks and REPLs and the CLI and git and PowerShell and ad hoc automated processes, things i used to use Sublime Text for, but much more. I've been using Code since it was first announced (along with VS) and the pace of innovation is much faster.
Again, none of those features are interesting because we have the dotnet cli that actually lets you know what's happening behind the scene. The only way this extension would been useful is if it integrates a source gen viewer, memory diagnoser or other advanced features like that, but that's kind of a hopeless case for VSC in general.
I wonder why no one mention the vscode-solution-explorer extension. In my opinion there is no need for the microsoft extensions. With that extension you can do pretty much the same as shown in this video.
I know I'm late on this discussion but why the licensing disclaimer? What does this extension add that the old OmniSharp version didn't have? At the end of the day, if all it's adding it some fancy UI on top of dotnet commands and dependent calls to OmniSharp, couldn't anyone build an extension to do exactly that (or even better) and thus avoid the licensing?
Thank you for the video. I think it's Microsoft's attempt to bring a little bit of money from VS Code and try to compete with other IDEs. A lot of folks don't like VS for its bulkiness, subsequent slowness, and lack of some utility features that IDEs like Rider have. Overall, I would still prefer a Rider, it has all I need, but I like to see if this will ever reach close to feature parity with it. P.S. I hope MS didn't harass you into taking down the previous video :(
@@guilla5 , the most I notice are: 1. Refactorings and their ease of use. VS has some support, but it is nothing compare to the RIder (ReSharper under the hood) 2. Speed. The editor is very responsive as well as all of the components coming with Rider. VS feel heavy and slow :( One example that stands out is Nuget package manager. I can make a coffee while it loads in VS :/ 3. Error highlights in the code and in the solution. Sound small, but it really helps. 4. Editor doing small things for you, like wrapping in the block, adding a method call, etc. Small things, but very pleasant. 5. UI structure and overall design of the components. Its very thought out right OOB. For instance, both VS and Rider has Solution explorer. Both support switching between Files and Solution modes. In VS switching to files and back is slow and like reloading a solution from scratch. In Rider, instantaneous. 6. Cool plugins, like HeapAllocationViewer that allows me to view memory allocation in debugger without running a profiler. 7. Live unit testing, which is only available in VS Enterprise. Rider costs $150/year and VS Enterprise $3000/year. :( And list goes on. Don't get me wrong, Rider has its own issues, one of which is slower adoption of new features. But, VS is still far away behind even thought they are making improvements.
@@andriisnihyr6497 Thanks for your insight, I just wanted to know some of the points in favor of rider, besides all that, the cost difference itself is ridiculous. Which version of VS have you used? Just for the sake of completeness.
@@guilla5 , I used Community for my pet projects and Enterprise at work. If I remember correctly, I quite using ReSharper with VS 2012 as it introduce more refactorings and Resharper was significantly slowing down VS. I tried Rider about half a year ago with one of their EAPs and got sold on it :D
I just tried this extension with a .NET SDK 7.0 project given to me. It said it was unable to find any tests, despite there being a nunit test project. Unsure how the author got it to work, but I'll be forced to used Visual studio for now. This is a bit annoying to me because I don't use specific IDEs for any other languages I work with.
Hm, I think this could be seen like a cross-platform VS replacement. Our company is moving away from Windows but we have a lot of .NET code so this could be a way forward.
Eh, I get why you took down the last video. There's going to be comments that preferred you didn't. You can't win 😂 I'm curious though, and maybe I'm missing something but why can't someone just make a similar vscode extension that's free? Are there some limitations with what standard extensions can do?
Is it possible to use VS Code and/or VS Studio Community, to compile a c# sln that was built with VS Studio Pro 2017? ("VisualStudioVersion = 15.0.28307.329 , MinimumVisualStudioVersion = 10.0.40219.1") Just looking to build a csharp project from gh.. no debug, just need the exe. Is there any other way to build it? Google Project IDX?
This is great for me as an individual, but at work i use Rider so i dont actually have a VS license anymore. I do use VSCode for many other stuff though. What if i accidentally use this plugin at work, what would happen? Since i use my company laptop for both personal and company stuff.
For the record, I still find the licensing they used for this a terrible idea on a personal level. Still, since not everyone shares that opinion with me, I decided to not present it as the de-facto opinion, especially given that I am actually a Rider user, not a VS user so such an opinion would look suspicious to many people.
Odd move to take down a video where you feel your opinion wasn't the same as everyone else. Just because it might be a concern for a minority of people, it still is a valid one, in my opinion
I've got to say that I'm with you on the licensing thing. If it has the same license as VS, then it makes sense to compare it to the features VS has to offer. This is a nice change if you're doing open source, but I guess I'll still stick with rider as my idea of choice for work.
The video should be public.
@@Kirtle An honest, ranting screed is nice for some audiences, but I guess Nick wants to focus on putting out actually useful information rather than getting rage clicks.
i agree the licensing is pretty fucked and feel pretty strongly about that too. in feel similarly strongly about VS and Rider, but it feels like a particularly shitty thing to inject into a thriving FOSS dev ecosystem when it's literally just basic language support you would hope is there to begin with. I feel like it sets a bad precedent that i hope others are not inspired to follow.
for context I am an avid Rider user, though that would change if this extension or a jetbrains plugin would fill the gap. it's ok to opt for the best tools for their job despite their developer's licensing schemes, and I don't think it's inherently hypocritical. just considering how VSCode is Microsoft's main "hey look guys we like and support open source !!" project, this is a particularly bad look
watch from now MSFT will always be a "look we're open source!!.... except for the AI bits" company. which is entirely missing the point. AI powered tools are especially important to expose, even if they don't release the model.
From awful to awesome in one day.Great job vscode team 😂
Great job MS lawyers 😂
😂😂😂 true
Always good when someone can admit they’re wrong. No hate for that
i saw the half of the video... what did he say he doesnt like?
@@qPaul That it's a payed product which doesn't make sense since he's paying for Rider.
Did not see enough good points that were not mentioned yesterday to justify this much of a change in the tone. The only new thing you said was the test ui.
Blink if you were threatened to take down the previous video.
I think I can see where it is going. Most of good features now would not come in omnisharp open source extension rather in closed source dev kit. This a very very bad move by Microsoft. Atleast the vs code experience should be free and open source. I don't think the official extension of any popular language in vs code is paid or closed source so why C#?
The way I see it is that this will become "Visual Studio for Linux". And considering this, the licensing model makes sense.
Well if you make that kind of money you can pay the licence
@@teo-tsirpanis Then it has to be paid. VS code is known for a free and open opensource experience for any langauge. Why can't C# have a good free and opensource experience inside vs code? Btw 45$/month is not at all cheap for only an extension.
@@zhh174 VS Code itself as Microsoft distributes it is not even open source though. They want you to believe it with vague marketing, but it is listed explicitly as not open source if you check their FAQ. The basis, which you can build your own version from, is though, but they add some other stuff to their distribution as well.
@@teo-tsirpanis As long as we don't lose VS for Mac - That seems to have lost some focus recently after a major push to get it out.
Hi Nick,
hope you see this,
I saw in the comments a lot of people who think you changed your mind for all kinds of reasons, and don't understand that you just wanted to present the plugins in a different way because the license didn't bother most people.
And some of the comments were written in a less nice way,
So just ignore them...
By the way, this is my opinion on the plugins:
I am a software engineering student and we are learning C# and also web development,
I used VS for C#, and VSC for web development,
So I experienced both and always found VSC much more comfortable than VS,
VS is heavy and clunky,
And VSC is lightweight, fast, customizable, and I'm also used to his keyboard shortcuts,
So if the development experience in C# was at the same level in VSC as in VS (or at least enough for me as a beginner) I would definitely use VSC,
So when you introduced the new plugins yesterday I immediately tried them,
But even though I really prefer the use of VSC, I think it is not yet mature enough to move to full development in VSC
A few things that bothered me
- When creating the project, there is no options beyond choosing a name, and that is quite lacking...
- When I created an API project with VSC it was created with the usual template as I would create it in VS - including with Swagger in program.cs, but the Swagger package was not installed so that the code has errors from the beginning (until I install the package manually)
- Which leads me to the next point - there is no interface for installing NuGet packages, and of course you can manage without it and install through the terminal, but for me as a beginner it is more complex...
- Another thing, when creating a file there is no template for creating a controller, which requires creating a regular class, and manually adding inheritance from controller and the attributes...
- I also did not see an option to add a project to the dependencies in the menus
So all in all, as I said, I would summarize it as a tool that is not yet mature enough, especially for me as a beginner who uses the initial templates, and the user interface,
Maybe for those who are already an expert in C# and know exactly the structure of the files, and know all the parts of the application and what they do, will be able to use this.
I hope it will improve - because as I wrote, I prefer VSC
and one last thing
The default VSC folder icons are not comfortable enough imo, so if you or anyone wants to improve their visibility, there is the Material Icon Theme plugin, which imo has a much more comfortable design
Yesterdays video was mostly still right though, the extension should be free.
The extension should have been done by Open Source devs, but nobody cared enough so Microsoft had to intervene.
I'm guessing they are reusing some of their old intellisense / Visual Studio sourcecode in there which has never been open source, so it may not be easy to just open-souce it without a risk of leaking company data etc.
Also, doing licensing in an open-source component isnt exactly easy either.
Any general-purpose programming language aiming for long-term relevance must include at least one robust, cross-platform integrated development environment (IDE) that developers can utilize professionally, free from paywalls. Alternatively, if not offered for free, there should be pricing options that consider purchasing power parity. After all, $1000 may hold different value for individuals in the US/EU compared to those in Latin America, Africa, or Asia. Maintaining a language requires a company or organization to prioritize the trust and goodwill of its users, avoiding excessive greed. Microsoft's past shortcomings in addressing these factors have contributed to Java's ongoing global popularity over C#. It is crucial for VS Code to remain freely accessible and available across platforms. Additionally, concerted efforts should be made to develop a commercial version of Visual Studio for Linux while enhancing Mac support. Such measures would undoubtedly satisfy a wide range of users, fostering a positive scenario for all.
I think that's another great tool for me to use. I prefer VS Code over VS, because for work I use a lot of different languages and this new extension just makes it more handy to do high level solution stuff.
Don't really care about the license yet.
Good luck to develop WPF on that
Oh my God thank you. I've been trying to switch from Visual Studio to VS Code for C# because I already use VS Code for all my other programming. But I could NOT figure out how to access Soltuion Explorer. You saved my sanity :D
You shouldn’t have taken down the previous video. You had valid concerns that were good. 😢
It’s still available for members
One of the biggest differences between Code and VS is that Code dropped the whole "Visual programming" motif with heavy mouse dependency and a "design surface". They're in the process of returning to keyboard-driven, so Code has the command palette and easily searchable settings in JSON, and evrything is ASCII. Microsoft is dealing with a decades-long u-turn on the fantasy of thinking that clicking and dragging pictures with your mouse is faster than typing words.
Decades-long Visual Studio u-turn is similar to their decades long Internet Explorer u-turn. (remember how much fun we had developing websites when IE was in circulation?) Chuck it in the bin and stick it on something open source that wasn't written by MS, and hey presto, things work like they should. Visual Studio = IE and VSCode = Edge.
And decades waiting for files to open in VS, and "failed to load project", and needing a restart when it shits the bed every five minutes, and taking aaaages opening any 'big' project. VS code plus dotnet cli is so much faster and more reliable.
@@marklnz Go into any modern coding shop and you'll see command line terminals open everywhere. The most advanced new AI product has a command line interface. That's what the thing is. Text-based interfaces are more portable and interoperable. Shortcut keys are WAY FASTER than mousing and losing the homerow keys.
@@marklnz yes, that's my observation. From that, i draw another observation: that the most flexible innovation medium is the word, not the image. Words are also more portable and composable. It's easier to say "dotnet create console --lang fsharp" than to describe the mouse movements and click-steps that need to be taken. Words are more expressive than emojis 🤷
@@marklnz the phrase is "a picture tells a thousand stories". Have YOU heard it? Sometimes you want to tell ONE story, or you want your code to do ONE thing, not a thousand things.
I'm a big fan of VS Code and I'm happy we get new features
As I mentioned in yesterday's video: Microsoft found a way to be Microsoft (as almost all of these big tech companies do). It's insane, IMO, to have a free editor with an extension that you need to pay for!
In their defense, VS Code is basically a free shell application with some free plug-ins. Anyone can sell plug-ins for VS Code. Why not Microsoft? It would be like giving away Windows and selling applications for it, or offer free Android with a Play store that has both free and paid apps in it.
That's true. I just think it would actually help them grow C# if they didn't decide to charage people in every single way they can.
"modern" languages (Go and Rust for example) work perfectly everywhere because they have nice small tools to contribute to the whole experience.
With Microsoft locking in tools for C#, I personally they're hurting the language instead of popularizing it
I'm not saying they're bad, per se. I'd personally never use a paid extension no matter how good it is (unless I absolutely HAVE TO, which thankfully hasn't happened until now)
What I'm trying to say is that, at least for Microsoft, it "could" be a nice strategy to give out these things for free (pretty sure they have LOTS of sources for income other than this), which would help spread the language and convince people to use it because they can have a great dev experience similar to other FREE languages like Rust and Go.
Cool, if that's the case, then it makes sense I guess
One of the Riders best features is the Configurations Manager. With it I can start a dozen of apps in one click, restart individual ones.
Once VS Code can do that I'm all in
Why don’t you write extensions for that?
@@brtk7probably cause docker compose solves this already
This is a great start but there's a long way to go. I prefer using VS Code nowadays but I still need VS for connected services (SOAP/OData) and reverse nuget package search (getting a package suggested after typing something that's not imported yet), although the former is the main reason I haven't fully switches to VS Code yet. That and maybe project templates as I cba using the cli for those.
definitely concerned with the licence. i probably won't use this plugin in case i get too dependent on it. i'm sure that will be the case with new dotnet devs that try it. i just cancelled my rider licence and came over to vscode because I love the ai plugins and i'm happy using the dotnet command line tool. was hoping there was something introduced in this video that i could use but i probably wont due to the licence. im with you on your point of view on this
Yeah, same for me. The organization I work for is already paying for VS2022, but I'm still using VS Code for C# for lightweight stuff. The plugin is really nice, but paying for it simply doesn't make sense for me in this case.
You were brave but the boss is the boss $$$
Your previous take was spot on. This video on the other hand felt a bit forced or pressured from the big giant that is MS.
Definitely feels like video made under corporate pressure. Sad when you have to backtrack on your honest opinions like this under threat.
@@VanDameDev Agree, it does not seem like a honesty video
Finally! That was missing for me to such an extent that I decided to stay with VS. Now, I can finally move to VS Code.
Brilliant - this is exciting. I haven't used Visual Studio for a long time, so this is great news.
Excelent information. I shy away from VS Code in favor of VSpro because I don't like the command line driven interactions required by VScode. But this seams to do a lot to bring parity between them, and I'm sure it'll get better. This will let me do more coding on my Mac when Im away from home too.
Vs code solution explorer is free extension that can be use it, provides functionality like visual studio solution explorer tree and doing almost samething
I was very confused until I got to the 40s mark lol
I agree with your take on the license. JetBrains Fleet is really coming along for C# development and it even has an integrated AI assistant with the latest update. It’s still in preview and we’re still waiting on plug-in support, but it’s wicked fast and it, too, will be cheaper than buying the license for this from MS. This is great news for JetBrains.
Can u explain in simple terms
JetBrains' IDE for C# isn't free as far as I know, no?
@@isuckatthisgame that’s true. Rider, JetBrains IDE for C# is not free; however the license for it is cheaper than an MS license, even for organizations (at least at the time I wrote that comment).
I wonder if they scrap VS for Mac in the long term in favour for this.
I heard the VS for Mac team was affected by the recent layoffs.
I was actually thinking of making a video about this very topic. It just makes sense to use the Dev Kit as a replacement of VS for Mac and also allow Linux users to have the same experience
My thoughts exactly!
@@nickchapsas Better make sure it works first. It looks like the Solution Explorer gets confused about the dotnet version. There is a ticket in for it that is active in the last couple of days
Well, this was way faster than expected
Edit:
I should have watched the entire video and my question will have been answered
Original:
Is there still a Licencing concern with the new plugins using the Visual Studio License. I watched your video on this yesterday, or the day before.
My workplace uses VS 2022 Enterprise so I don't think this effects me professionally. I also still use Community personally, and am comfortable with it. I use VS Code to bring up one-off files (.cs and .sql for example) that are outside the solution I'm working on in VS, so for that reason I've never added extensions to VS Code. So I guess no problem for me. I hope more people are able to use this though since it really sounds promising for "simpler" projects. Thanks Nick.
Yeah I use VsCode for merge conflicts only as I find their UI for that quite good, usually just use VS Enterprise as we have licences for that.
VSCode is OK for non-Windows (non-PC) people.
I also use VS and it's still No1 on my list. Tried Rider but it killed my CPU just for simple code editing.
@@jessica_tee i'll check that out today, see if merges are better for myself as well. Thanks
i'm really happy for this working out cause c# is on my list of programing languages i want to learn as a backend dev an i've been using it for a while so it will good to have it close to home
I thought your other video was very good. There is an issue with cost and how to handle it, and how to trade, and how to exchange value for value, and how to evaluate the exchange and all that entails. The pricing model will drive some people out of C#, but what is the quality of totally gratis development environments? How well are they developed and improved? How should developers think about paying for development? Many software developers have a serious problem of thinking that software should be free, but they should be payed.
The main problem with the OG C# (omnisharp) extension was that it just dies every now and then, you can working for an hour and suddenly intellisense won't work and you have to restart VSCode etc, I just hope this new extension is reliable enough.
Btw, this intellisense issue actually occurs in their flagship VS as well but very very occasionally, I find that VSCode intellisense is more "less intrusive" and receptive, only issue was it just dies every now and then.
So I hope the new extension addresses this sudden death issue, excited to try it out.
but why build the new extension with all the fixed closed source, come on. Just hope it eas worth it. We can probably see the code if we want to though.
Personally I used VSCode to get used to the dotnet command line, I wish the context menu commands generated terminal code below, or an option to enable that :(, VSCode is about more flexibility right.
Also I'm kind of comcerned, somwthing so big happned yet I was not in the loop? How to get these newses quickly, like from MS.
Instead of restarting VS Code when the language server dies you can ctrl+shift+p and type "restart omnisharp" or something similar (I'm on mobile now so not 100% sure of the command :)
@@rCinCLined thanks :), I just hope I don't have to do that often, you don't know what you don't know and somtimes when intellisense isnt working it prones writing a few lines that are syntactically wrong..and wastes time, lets hope this extension good.
Do you prefer using Rider for C# or VS Code?
Rider
Even with this, VsCode is still basically notepad with syntax highlighting and some better DX
Fantastic option for VSCode. Booooo for the license!!
got some whiplash from the first video in my feed this morning
I've always wondered if VS Code will replace VS at some point in the future (far future) . Wonder if Microsoft or any of their devs have mentioned such plan
As always at MSFT, they don‘t know that either, or cannot come to terms.
It just goes on like this for a long while, until one time when it‘s obvious, only then they will make an announcement (maybe).
Like with the downfall of UWP, it still is advertised in the official docs as “UWP is a powerful tool for creating client apps.”. (nonetheless they didn’t update the platform for years and it’s stuck with netstandard 2.0!)
If it ever replaces VS it will become another VS and we will need a new VS Code.
@@innerbytes Yeah, never underestimate Microsoft's ability to fuck up good things. I can't think of a single thing the last 3 years where Microsoft has changed something for the better. Literally everything they do has gotten worse.
5:06 "Since it is made by Microsoft we know it's going to be well supported"... bruh... since when are Microsoft supporting their free stuff? In fact, they're barely supporting their paid stuff, especially not "well".
Well it's not free so
Nice, but still no official nuget package manager?
idk what you're talking about honestly, i've been coding c# for the past 6 month excursively on linux with vscode, it's honestly better that way as you're forced to do things manually and always know what's happening in the background
I was waiting for this kind of extension otherwise we were feeling like an old coder
Seems like this makes vsc viable for c# now🎉
Nick, I am curious: Why did you decide to take down yesterday's video? Was it just TH-cam comments and the like/dislike ratio? Or were you actually contacted by someone from a certain corporation?
The like/dislike ratio was 98% positive, but if peopel in the comments thought that licensing wasn't so much of a big deal, then I was probably on the wrong
@@nickchapsas Most likely is a bias. People are more inclined to comment in things they disagree. Like me, I completely agreed with the video from yesterday, but I did not comment, and I disagree a lot with this one. Now I'm commenting hahaha
@@PauloDanielCarneiro Maybe it is but it also looks like a weaker point from my end because I am a Rider user. If i was a VS user and I made the same video then it would have been received better I'm sure
Hey Nick, great stuff! I wonder how did you resolve the Roslyn issues?
I simply won't be bothering with this. For C# I'll stick to the proper IDE's.
My IDE, for all my life, has been VS and I'll stick to it.
Though, in my younger years it was VS + Resharper. These days, my company won't pay for it, so it's just VS Enterprise.
JS/TS however --> VS Code over VS, since VS sucks for anything JS/TS. Somehow such an expensive product has managed to keep a very sub-par experience on that for years now.
3:22 - I assume we will get more options in the future. Well, that was optimistic, a year later and it hasn't changed.
My boy nick got Hiltoned
AHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA
it is a great tool if you are working with a lot of microservices and you just need to check something. Instead of opening VS/Rider you can just quickly open up VSC and you are done :)
JetBrains does indeed have more features in this case, but does it have all the other extensions that VSC offers?
most wanted feature i would like in VS code or VS 2022 is dump feature and export any data collections like that of LinqPad , its very helpful for those working in data related tasks, VS2022 now has IEnumerable Visualizer so kind of helpful but its not seamlesss expierence way to connect to Sql and then work on some C# logic and then export (csv,excel) like that of Linqpad
Thank u man, this helped me al lot!!
I normally use Visual Studio for my C# applications and VSCode for Javascript frameworks and such.
I completely get Dev Kit to be closed source and licensed. It is a good move by Microsoft to monetize VS Code with the features of Visual Studio. It is a business at the end. What I don't get is in VS Code we have go, rust, dart, typescript etc... and all of those are free with good tooling(testing, commands in palette etc). I expect Microsoft to do the same, standard features should be free. There should not be any arguing with that. If Microsoft wants to monetize something they can monetize advanced features of Visual Studio such as IntelliCode, SQL integrations or whatever features enterprises use these days. I am sorry about the current situation but most of the new startups/scaleups chose either go, nodejs, flutter and with this kind of decisions lately I don't expect any change.
For the most part those tooling extensions have had almost no active development for the last 2 years.
Thanks Nick!
Love all your work dude. Hope you didn't wake up to a horse's head in your bed 😬
I don't think you were wrong in your previous video. Is visual Studio somehow Microsoft's cash cow? They should make it free like apple gives away xcode.
Visual Studio Community release is free. You can do almost everything with that one.
Sorry to sound like an idiot, but regarding the license, is this covered under your visual studio subscription or would it be an additional subscription?
I already have a VS subscription through work so just wondering if I would be covered to use this at work or no?
Hello nick, could you please make a video about debuggind docker compose projects in c# with rider? it's a real pain comparing with visual studio
Great, but it should be free. For SLN I have used another extension called solution explorer. For tests there isn't a good one though.
For existing solution (which was previously made by Rider) the VS Code will NOT open "Solution explorer". Fired a bug at github of this extension.
I'm worried that the scope and purpose of VS Code is going to get confused with the main purpose of VS Studio. Perhaps the venn diagram between these is already overlapped too much, and MS is thinking the plugin architecture of code is much better than studio? Or is the same "plugin functionality" used in both?
Either way, I'm confused as a developer which too focus on, or do I need to be skilled up on both? If so, where is the delineation between them?
Great overview and take on the release of this. Something I seem to have lost is the ability to switch between active projects when I have a directory open with multiple projects. That is when I'm just using the C# extension (no dev kit). Why is that?
Did you really remove the video you shared yesterday about this topic?
I turned it to members only
I code for fun (not for profit and my projects are either open source or the projects are completely private (what I mean about private is I am the only one who has access to the binaries or source) (some of these may be open sourced if I ever make them public) (so I assume this plugin is OK, I use the normal vscode not vscodium so aparently I am OK with properitary as long as it does not conflict with what I am trying to do) (but hopefully my personal scripting language matures enough for me to switch to it, so I don't need to use Microsoft's software anymore)
After installing this, every time i try to run one of the commands i get an "csdevkit command not found" error. Any ideas what could be causing this?
Solved: Update the C# extension (not c# dev kit) to pre release version. Or just wait until microsoft update it properly
Even withh the tons of themes that there are for VS Code, the default colors for C# are the greatest ones 😛!
I wonder if a VS license entitles you to this DevKit or if you'd have to pay for both? One other benefit here is a single IDE for someone who works with Typescript for frontend and C# for backend.
If you have an enterprise VS license, you are covered for these extentions in the same enterprise level
I like VS Code better than VS. You can use it with any folder, not just projects, and when you add a file to a folder you can see it in the editor. Better support for Notebooks and REPLs and the CLI and git and PowerShell and ad hoc automated processes, things i used to use Sublime Text for, but much more. I've been using Code since it was first announced (along with VS) and the pace of innovation is much faster.
Again, none of those features are interesting because we have the dotnet cli that actually lets you know what's happening behind the scene. The only way this extension would been useful is if it integrates a source gen viewer, memory diagnoser or other advanced features like that, but that's kind of a hopeless case for VSC in general.
@nickchapsas have you tried these plugins with conjunction with remote development? I tried ssh but many features are not working for me.
What font is this? Looks nice.
what about debugging tho?
Well thats a lot better indeed, still prefer VS tho...
Like it, i will maybe use it with copilot chat until rider has copilot chat. But still prefer rider over this for now
c# => Jetbrains Rider :)
I wonder why no one mention the vscode-solution-explorer extension. In my opinion there is no need for the microsoft extensions. With that extension you can do pretty much the same as shown in this video.
Accepting being wrong is only for the braves.
I know I'm late on this discussion but why the licensing disclaimer? What does this extension add that the old OmniSharp version didn't have? At the end of the day, if all it's adding it some fancy UI on top of dotnet commands and dependent calls to OmniSharp, couldn't anyone build an extension to do exactly that (or even better) and thus avoid the licensing?
Thank you for the video. I think it's Microsoft's attempt to bring a little bit of money from VS Code and try to compete with other IDEs. A lot of folks don't like VS for its bulkiness, subsequent slowness, and lack of some utility features that IDEs like Rider have. Overall, I would still prefer a Rider, it has all I need, but I like to see if this will ever reach close to feature parity with it.
P.S. I hope MS didn't harass you into taking down the previous video :(
What features does rider have that VS is yet missing? I am genuinely curious
@@guilla5 , the most I notice are:
1. Refactorings and their ease of use. VS has some support, but it is nothing compare to the RIder (ReSharper under the hood)
2. Speed. The editor is very responsive as well as all of the components coming with Rider. VS feel heavy and slow :( One example that stands out is Nuget package manager. I can make a coffee while it loads in VS :/
3. Error highlights in the code and in the solution. Sound small, but it really helps.
4. Editor doing small things for you, like wrapping in the block, adding a method call, etc. Small things, but very pleasant.
5. UI structure and overall design of the components. Its very thought out right OOB. For instance, both VS and Rider has Solution explorer. Both support switching between Files and Solution modes. In VS switching to files and back is slow and like reloading a solution from scratch. In Rider, instantaneous.
6. Cool plugins, like HeapAllocationViewer that allows me to view memory allocation in debugger without running a profiler.
7. Live unit testing, which is only available in VS Enterprise. Rider costs $150/year and VS Enterprise $3000/year. :(
And list goes on.
Don't get me wrong, Rider has its own issues, one of which is slower adoption of new features. But, VS is still far away behind even thought they are making improvements.
@@andriisnihyr6497 Thanks for your insight, I just wanted to know some of the points in favor of rider, besides all that, the cost difference itself is ridiculous.
Which version of VS have you used? Just for the sake of completeness.
@@guilla5 , I used Community for my pet projects and Enterprise at work. If I remember correctly, I quite using ReSharper with VS 2012 as it introduce more refactorings and Resharper was significantly slowing down VS.
I tried Rider about half a year ago with one of their EAPs and got sold on it :D
isnt that 3000$ price a onepayment visual studio?@@andriisnihyr6497
How's this different from Fernando Escolar's vscode-solution-explorer extension?
I just tried this extension with a .NET SDK 7.0 project given to me. It said it was unable to find any tests, despite there being a nunit test project. Unsure how the author got it to work, but I'll be forced to used Visual studio for now.
This is a bit annoying to me because I don't use specific IDEs for any other languages I work with.
Hm, I think this could be seen like a cross-platform VS replacement. Our company is moving away from Windows but we have a lot of .NET code so this could be a way forward.
are you working dotnet in linux environment?
@@snapcaselled1201 A little bit. Most of the stuff runs in Linux containers already. But a lot of people now want macBooks.
I wonder if they will add Blazor support
You were not wrong
Is there a reason to use VS Code over VS Community if you are not an enterprise?
Same concern applies, why not open source 😏
VSCode IS Open Source. The Extensions and the extensions mechanism is NOT, because it was taken from VS
@@gpapadopoulos I don't think the video showcases vs code and neither does my statement.
I am almost inclined to say this is the new Visual Studio 2024/25
Still no nuget package manager? Would be a really nice addition...
Is there a way to enable K&R code formatting for C# in Visual Studio Code?
This seems more like a less featured vs or rider for the same price... Why would I want it for work over either of them?
Eh, I get why you took down the last video. There's going to be comments that preferred you didn't. You can't win 😂
I'm curious though, and maybe I'm missing something but why can't someone just make a similar vscode extension that's free? Are there some limitations with what standard extensions can do?
Yeah they can make it, but they could always make it. They just never did so why now
Does this mean you get code coverage dor C# displayed in VSCode?
Do you know how to enable auto closing of the html tags in the cshtml files?
How does Rider work with blazor? An alternstive to VS?
Is it possible to use VS Code and/or VS Studio Community, to compile a c# sln that was built with VS Studio Pro 2017?
("VisualStudioVersion = 15.0.28307.329 , MinimumVisualStudioVersion = 10.0.40219.1")
Just looking to build a csharp project from gh.. no debug, just need the exe. Is there any other way to build it? Google Project IDX?
reading from the internet seems like vscode is shit for c# at least compared to studio, no features, bad reviews of the extensions
This is great for me as an individual, but at work i use Rider so i dont actually have a VS license anymore. I do use VSCode for many other stuff though. What if i accidentally use this plugin at work, what would happen? Since i use my company laptop for both personal and company stuff.
Absolutely nothing will happen 😅
Look awesome!
Still waiting for fleets plugins from jb so I can do all simple tasks or rust there
Do you know how to set up VS Code to work with .NET Framework projects?
I still cannot create a c# class/interface using key board though.
What is the difference between an Organization and an Enterprise?