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Visual Studio for Mac Preview

397 points| clbrook | 9 years ago |visualstudio.com | reply

144 comments

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[+] johnhattan|9 years ago|reply
FWIW, this is actually a rebranding of Xamarin Studio, so it only handles C# and F#. It's a bit puzzling, as VSCode seemed to be the tool that was going to take over all the Xamarin Studio features.
[+] wmccullough|9 years ago|reply
If I had to really take a guess here, this is what I'd speculate.

This is only the first step for Visual Studio Mac. The next will be to begin bringing feature parity to the Mac version (My gut feeling is that VB.NET won't make the leap, but with Roslyn, maybe I'm wrong).

I feel this isn't stated enough. VSCode, albeit made by Microsoft, goes way beyond Microsoft's core interests. Given that you can now enable language support for around 470-ish languages, I don't think that their game here is to be a replacement for anything. I have an even crazier suspicion about what VSCode is really about.

So if you've lived with Visual Studio for years, you know that it's been COM based for a looonnnnggg time (since inception). I think VSCode serves two interests. The first interest is to bring non-Microsoft users in the fold with the hopes that they may go "This ain't so bad, maybe I'll give other stuff a try". I think the second is that they need a playground to figure out how to, excuse me here, "unfuck" the core architecture of Visual Studio. If they can write suitable replacements for core functionality, let them bake and mature for some time, then BOOM! they can replace the VS components.

Like I said, just a crazy opinion based on what I've seen so far.

[+] jsingleton|9 years ago|reply
Xamarin Studio didn't support .NET Core, so previously you had to use the CLI tools and an editor like VS Code. You could run ASP.NET MVC in XS (version 5, Core is effectively version 6) but this ran on Mono.

Visual Studio for Mac (aka XS vNext) does now support ASP.NET Core so there is less need for VS Code. The re-brand makes sense (it's not just for Xamarin now). However, Code runs on more platforms (Linux, ARM etc.) and is also used in the browser as part of Azure.

I wrote a better summary of the differences here: https://unop.uk/getting-started-with-c-sharp-and-cross-platf.... It's the last in a four part blog series about .NET on Mac.

[+] rpeden|9 years ago|reply
XS/MonoDevelop worked with Visual Basic last time I tried it, so perhaps VS for Mac will as well?
[+] brudgers|9 years ago|reply
My intuition is that VScode and Visual Studio are likely to remain significantly different products for the foreseeable future. VScode is an Electron app. Visual Studio is more a 'native' app with deeper integration into the host operating system.

Xamarin Studio was built to provide a Visual Studio like experience regarding platform integration and to align with the architecture of Visual Studio. VScode does not appear to have those as the primary goals. It was already available for OSX.

To me, this is further evidence that Microsoft's acquisition of Xamarin was in hopes of accelerating cross platform product development along a roadmap that tends to be more open source friendly. It may turn out that Xamarin Studio provides the core platform for Visual Studio at some time in the future or at least that the code bases merge to a greater degree over time.

[+] tracker1|9 years ago|reply
Yeah, it is a little confusing on that front... I've been really happy with VS Code, as it's always run very fast/well (at least on SSD).
[+] melling|9 years ago|reply
Jedi Mind Trick. This is the tool you're looking for.

It's amazing how the rebranding changes attitudes.

[+] duckworth|9 years ago|reply
I went to install it and it seems to be forcing me to download another full Android SDK to a private location without the option the specifying the existing Android SDK location that I already have set up. A quick search show this as an open issue that is 5 years old https://bugzilla.xamarin.com/show_bug.cgi?id=859

I lost interest already.

[+] wmccullough|9 years ago|reply
I agree with you totally. I bounce between macOS and Windows for development, and I wish they'd take a better approach with dependency management.

I hope that the approach with the VS Mac installer ends up going the way of VS 2017 on Windows. I love the fact that I can choose say ".NET development" in the installer and turn off unneeded packages.

[+] m_st|9 years ago|reply
Same thing here. I don't care about Android development, just about Xamarin for iOS and Mac and .NET Core. I cancelled the installation as it tries to install some Java and Android SDK which I don't want. Better luck next time.
[+] pauloday|9 years ago|reply
That's weird because the Xamarin Studio installer definitely has an option to set your own API location.
[+] curtisspope|9 years ago|reply
UPDATED WITH SCREENSHOTS

I have it and have installed it,Initial thoughts:

( I use VS Pro every day BTW)

here are some screenshots

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/nbsetrwnoirbhr0/AAAuF0FHR2nACBaft...

-Great first step, I can only see raw code and code behind views

-No visual Layout view yet, but its greyed out in the View Menu, when selecting .aspx File (Source|Changes|Blame|Log|Merge)

-Looks like its so far, meant for lightweight projects

-Git integration is much simpler to setup/use

[+] bni|9 years ago|reply
So Microsoft names all their products Visual Studio now. Before it used to be that everything was called Windows.

So its just like the 3 versions of Skype that Microsoft offers.

[+] m_fayer|9 years ago|reply
Xamarin studio is in many ways lighter and more asynchronous than vs proper, so there is some upside. But it's missing visual studio's absolutely killer feature, which is the superb c# repl. Add that and my windows virtual machine will start gathering a lot of dust.
[+] bluetwo|9 years ago|reply
I kind of feel like we are being astro-turfed by Microsoft.

* Google joins .NET Foundation as Samsung brings .NET support to Tizen

* Visual Studio for Mac Preview

* Visual Studio 2017 Release Candidate

* Microsoft announces the next version SQL Server for Windows and Linux

* Announcing .NET Core 1.1

* Microsoft Becomes Linux Foundation Platinum Member

* Visual Studio Mobile Center Preview

* Announcing the Fastest ASP.NET Yet, ASP.NET Core 1.1 RTM

(And before you tell me I'm wrong because I can't PROVE it, let me remind you I said I FEEL like we are being astro-turfed.)

[+] simonh|9 years ago|reply
Can we change the title to "Xamarin Studio for Mac renamed Visual Studio for Mac".
[+] wdr1|9 years ago|reply
I'm dubious. I've been burned twice by MS pushing a product on the Mac platform & then yanking support. In both cases the answer was effectively "Well, switch to Windows."

I genuinely hope Microsoft is really changing. But there is a lot of bad history associated with the company. It takes a long time to change the culture of a company, and a long time to regain user's trust.

[+] Delmania|9 years ago|reply
It's a rebranding of Xamarin Studio, they're not going to stop support for it any time soon. Even if they did, just use Code.
[+] fzn|9 years ago|reply
This raises a question: What compilers/toolchains did MS Macintosh Business Unit use during the second part of the 1990s?
[+] mrpippy|9 years ago|reply
Office 98 still used MSVC++ 4.0 hosted on x86 (the Cross-Development Edition that targeted 68k/PPC MacOS). They migrated to CodeWarrior for Office 2001.

Blog posts from MacBU employees that you will find interesting (also their archives around this time): http://www.schwieb.com/blog/2006/06/02/a-brief-history-of-ma... https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/rick_schaut/2006/06/03/the-... https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/rick_schaut/2004/02/26/mac-... http://www.schwieb.com/blog/2006/06/04/pseudo-code/

[+] mikestew|9 years ago|reply
Until someone with a better memory and more direct knowledge comes along, I'm going to guess that they used Apple's tools. In the early 2000s, I know that's what they used because I had buddies over in the Mac BU.
[+] koenigdavidmj|9 years ago|reply
I can't answer the compiler question specifically, but based on using some of those products (at least Office 98), I think they ported a fairly large subset of whatever API they were using on Windows. Most of the controls were almost identical to Office 97 on Windows, except for things like the Mac menu bar. Office 97 also allowed the customization of the order of menu bar items; the Mac version retained these options, but they never actually worked.
[+] eschaton|9 years ago|reply
At least in the Word 6 et al timeframe, Microsoft had switched to developing their Mac software using the Visual Studio Tools for Macintosh cross compiler running on Windows. They switched back to doing development on the Mac for either Office 98 or Office 2001, using Metrowerks CodeWarrior.
[+] bsharitt|9 years ago|reply
I know that there's a lot of comments about this just being a rename of Xamarin Studio, but hopefully this is pointer in the direction Microsoft may go in eventually joining the two IDEs and in a major version or two we might actually have a Visual Studio on Windows and Mac(and maybe Linux?) that are pretty close to each other.
[+] ld00d|9 years ago|reply
I'm installing it right now, and I'm getting admin access requests -- way more than I should.
[+] evilduck|9 years ago|reply
The Intel HAXM Android emulator requires kernel extensions. I'm puzzled why anything else needs admin though.
[+] erichardson30|9 years ago|reply
When trying to open up a project I'm getting : Error trying to load the project 'Users/user/Projects/Project/ProjectName/ProjectName.csproj': Version string portion was too short or too long

Anyone know why this would be? This runs fine on windows VS

[+] sremani|9 years ago|reply
On Live they just announced it few minutes ago. Its official!!! Visual Studio on Mac :P
[+] bphogan|9 years ago|reply
I'm really confused - because when I go to the site, it doesn't really say "Visual Studio" - it references tooling and Visual Studio Code. So am I missing something?
[+] clbrook|9 years ago|reply
Just saw it too! So exciting :)
[+] scosman|9 years ago|reply
Was hoping for Objective C support when I saw it. Would love to get rid of Xcode.
[+] ChristianGeek|9 years ago|reply
Objective C support? Never going to happen. Swift support? Unlikely, but a stronger possibility thanks to its cross-platform support. I wouldn't hold my breath though.
[+] santaclaus|9 years ago|reply
If you are using Objective C what are the problems with Xcode?
[+] rajathagasthya|9 years ago|reply
I've never used Visual Studio, so I'd like to know how easy and reliable it is to work on a remote Python code on your local Visual Studio. I've tried using sshfs with vim to do that, but it's too slow and hinders my productivity. I'm wondering how other folks here do similar stuff, preferably without changing my editor from vim to something else (I've been suggested to use atom-sync).
[+] mtw|9 years ago|reply
I'm looking for macbook pro alternatives... so wondering, do you think one day it would be posible to have Visual Studio for PC compile iOS projects?
[+] WorldMaker|9 years ago|reply
The new Visual Studio Mobile Center announced support for cloud builds and CI of iOS projects, which is probably the closest we'll get: hiring Mac build machines in Azure to do the work for us.
[+] joenot443|9 years ago|reply
As in, native ones written in Swift which utilize Foundation and UIKit?

I would say almost certainly not.

[+] ickler8|9 years ago|reply
That is currently an Apple issue. iOS projects have to be compiled on Apple hardware.
[+] andy|9 years ago|reply
My feedback on Visual Studio for Mac: I created a basic mobile application. I didn't write any code - just started with a new application and clicked run. When I launched it for iOS it worked. When I launched it for Android it crashed immediately. OK...
[+] xamcb|9 years ago|reply
Hey! I work on the Xamarin team at Microsoft, and I would like to help out on this! Are you able to send me the crash logs or application output? Thanks!