Microsoft is Bringing Visual Studio To Mac (techcrunch.com)

Microsoft will finally bring Visual Studio, a "true mobile-first, cloud-first development tool for .NET and C#," to Mac later this month, the company has said. From a report on TechCrunch:The IDE is very similar to the one found on Windows. In fact, that is presumably the point. By making it easy for OS X users to switch back and forth between platforms, Microsoft is able to ensure coders can quickly become desktop agnostic or, barring that, give Windows a try again. From the release: "At its heart, Visual Studio for Mac is a macOS counterpart of the Windows version of Visual Studio. If you enjoy the Visual Studio development experience, but need or want to use macOS, you should feel right at home. Its UX is inspired by Visual Studio, yet designed to look and feel like a native citizen of macOS. And like Visual Studio for Windows, it's complemented by Visual Studio Code for times when you don't need a full IDE, but want a lightweight yet rich standalone source editor.

Comments

The worst

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess this is what you could call "the worst of both worlds".

Re: The worst

[Anonymous Coward]

Fantastic!

Re: The worst

[Anonymous Coward]

who would want C# on a Mac? Over a "cloud"??

H1B indian monkeys at Monkeyshit Corp have gone mad.

Re: The worst

[Anonymous Coward]

Unity devs already have it

Re:The worst

[slazzy]

Affordable Apple hardware with quality Microsoft software?

Xcode is superior, go away

[Anonymous Coward]

I cannot stand Visual Studio's project/solution hierarchy. Xcode allows for an additional tier; target/project/workspace. 8 files build in parallel, not projects. Build times in Xcode are so much faster for the same C++ library.

Re:Xcode is superior, go away

[Anonymous Coward]

So I guess what you're trying to say is, "I don't use it, I never have used it, and I doubt I ever will."

Thanks for keeping us up to date on what tools you're using - we were waiting with breathless anticipation for your input.

Oh, and for what it's worth - Atom and Rubymine are my tools of choice, because they support the tools and technologies I work with. Because I know you're all sitting on pins and needles waiting to hear what a second anonymous coward thinks.

Re:Xcode is superior, go away

[Anonymous Coward]

Given that Apple's basically put macOS on life support, however, having a migration path to other development platforms is a good thing. Is there any sign of an XCode for iOS? I'll bet Microsoft brings Visual Studio to it first... they'll have plenty of experience by that time with what works on a touchscreen via Surface.

Re:Xcode is superior, go away

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing about this hints that the OP never used it but if you have some real insights feel free to share...

Re:Xcode is superior, go away

[hsmith]

XCode is just buggy as all get out though. It has progressively gotten less stable. The IDE is fantastic, but it has so many issues. Doing Swift 2.3 it is pointing out Swift 3.0 "errors." Functionality just doesn't work (downloading provisioning profiles via Settings). They haven't been maintaining it quality wise as it once was.

Re:Xcode is superior, go away

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple's basically put macOS on life support

Is that so? Please do share your thoughts.

Re:Xcode is superior, go away

[Anonymous Coward]

XCode is just buggy as all get out though. It has progressively gotten less stable. The IDE is fantastic, but it has so many issues. Doing Swift 2.3 it is pointing out Swift 3.0 "errors." Functionality just doesn't work (downloading provisioning profiles via Settings). They haven't been maintaining it quality wise as it once was.

There is not single factual statement here.

Re:Xcode is superior, go away

[OzPeter]

They haven't been maintaining it quality wise as it once was.

I haven't seriously used XCode for a while but I don't think ever got to the same level of quality as VS. My biggest pet peeve was that refactoring in XCode sucked big hairy donkey's balls in comparison to VS (even without thing slick resharper). And refactoring is a major part of coding.

Re:Xcode is superior, go away

[hsmith]

Sure thing buddy. Add to the list the lack of support for refactoring Swift code. Language has been out two years now and they still don't support BASIC functionality of an IDE.

Re:Xcode is superior, go away

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure thing buddy. Add to the list the lack of support for refactoring Swift code. Language has been out two years now and they still don't support BASIC functionality of an IDE.

Again this statement has zero bases in reality and is unsupported by facts.

Re:Xcode is superior, go away

[Anonymous Coward]

It's been on life support since their abortive plan to build a Mac-like UI on top of the Vista interface back in the mid 2000s. Jobs was pissed that Microsoft didn't deliver on some of the functionality they needed to make so-called "Mac OS Y" work (and Andy Trevelyan threatened to quit over it, which he did shortly afterwards anyway.)

The plan was Windows + Mac OS X APIs (see the DLLs that come with iTunes and Safari for Windows) for their desktops, eventually with the Mac business and responsibility for that shit being sold to someone like Lenovo or Dell, and Linux for the next generation of iDevices. Right now they're still waiting for the right time to press the button, but believe me, I've seen the Windows 10 version of what they've been working on, and it's beautiful. You wouldn't know Windows 10 was running underneath.

Re:Xcode is superior, go away

[squiggleslash]

Probably true. "They haven't been maintaining it quality wise as it once was." completely contradicts the notion that it's buggy. It certainly used to be a buggy, unstable, piece of crap.

Re:Xcode is superior, go away

[DickBreath]

Brag about Xcode all you want. But can Xcode do this . . .

Clippy: It looks like you're trying to get useful work done.
Would you like me to help you install Windows 10?

If you would like to have Windows 10 installed, then please do any of the following actions:
1. Click Yes
2. Click No
3. Click Cancel
4. Click the red button in the window's title bar
5. Abruptly disconnect the computer's electrical power to have Windows 10 conveniently installed on the next reboot.

Re:Xcode is superior, go away

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering you have provided no facts other then a Monty Python "no it isnt" argument, I'd say you are just another boring apple worshiper with nothing to add.

Re:Xcode is superior, go away

[Lumpy]

Ignore him, it's the new trend of trolls to try and use big words why saying absolutely nothing.

Re:Xcode is superior, go away

[Anonymous Coward]

OP here, my comment is on C++ code (in order to compare on a level playing field). Swift is irrelevant in this discussion.

Re:Xcode is superior, go away

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's actually macs4all. Since being modded into oblivion I bet he's resorted to posting anonymously.

Re:Xcode is superior, go away

[Anonymous Coward]

The only trolls are people making blatantly false statements.

Re: Xcode is superior, go away

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish Xcode had a proper C++ debugger, to see vars and such without having to pull hair out of ass. As a compiler - yes, probably it is ok, works well with Objective-C.

Swift sucks indeed, but that is due to the Swift team complete incompetence.

Re:Xcode is superior, go away

[hsmith]

Like idiots claiming XCode has no issues? Agree.

Re:Xcode is superior, go away

[Anonymous Coward]

The only idiot here is you.

Re:Xcode is superior, go away

[Anonymous Coward]

Mac OS W (not Y LOL) yeah, that takes me back. I was working on a bunch of UI fixes when Jobs finally pulled the plug, though I'm told it's still being maintained. I had to finish my fixes before they let me work on something else. After that it was pretty much all iDevices, I remember most of the OS X team being moved over, it took us years to get an update out after the one after the release that was supposed to be Mac OS W.

If you saw it running on Windows 10, they must still be working on it, but I really don't know why.

Re:Xcode is superior, go away

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. It is the stupidest 'build' system I have ever encountered. It stinks. Always has.

Re:Xcode is superior, go away

[mfearby]

Xcode for iOS? Are you smoking crack or something? Who wants to develop stuff using an iPhone or an iPad?!

Re: Xcode is superior, go away

[Anonymous Coward]

You aren't looking for an argument. You want Abuse, you stupid git.

Re:Xcode is superior, go away

[Anonymous Coward]

There is nothing O in OP.

Fantastic

[hsmith]

Been doing .NET forever and with .NET Core running on macOS now, this is welcome news. Visual Studio Code is nice, but it isn't the solution full Visual Studio is. With full blown Visual Studio, .NET Core, Docker, I won't even need to run VMs anymore on my macbook to get work done.

Can you cross-compile with it?

[RogueWarrior65]

I'd be happy if software companies who made the mistake of using platform-specific APIs and languages could cross-compile. Are you listening, Intuit?

Re:Can you cross-compile with it?

[bondsbw]

That's the whole point of Xamarin.

Re:Can you cross-compile with it?

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone that works on supplementary programs for Intuit solutions, yes, they are listening, just need to speak up loud enough

Re:Can you cross-compile with it?

[Rob Y.]

The whole point of Xamarin is to hold out the prospect of cross-platform API's to get people not using Microsoft API's to switch to a Microsoft-specific API, that yes - for now - is kind of platform agnostic. Maybe that's okay-ish, but it'd have been a better solution had Microsoft not bought it. And it's not a desktop solution at all - it provides some decent mobile GUI stuff, but nothing to get WIN32 desktop developers to switch.

Re:Can you cross-compile with it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Xamarin started as C# for iOS and Android. None of those have anything in common, nor Microsoft APIs. Now you have xamarin forms, but they recommend it only if you are doing really generic UI. Please step up the FUD, you're coming low for Slashdot's level.

Re:Can you cross-compile with it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad Apple's changes to Gatekeeper in macOS 10.12 make it impossible to compile mac applications (that will run with the default Gatekeeper settings) on any other platform.

Re:Can you cross-compile with it?

[Anonymous Coward]

To cross compile, use GCC

Re:Can you cross-compile with it?

[Anonymous Coward]

>Intuit

I thought Quickbooks now has a self hosted HTTP webservice as an API, no? I haven't used it in years, but I remember they were going that direction because they wanted devs to easily migrate to their cloud solution.

Re: Can you cross-compile with it?

[Anonymous Coward]

I fought for several years building mobile apps in C# with Xamarin. It was painful. I obtained a contract at Microsoft working on the Microsoft suite of mobile applications, working on the iOS versions. They use Xcode and objective C. They were at the time partners with Xamarin.

Almost bought a Windows laptop...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been debating the past few weeks on whether or not to buy a new Windows laptop just so I could run Visual Studio....this solves that problem, thanks Microsoft!

Re:Almost bought a Windows laptop...

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> whether or not to buy a new Windows laptop just so I could run Visual Studio

Yes, you still should. (And get one with a nice SSD, but you probably already knew that.) Unless MS is also moving over support for SQL Server Express, debuggers, the full AD infrastructure, etc. they still have those of us who write for large/corporate environments by the short and curlies.

Re:Almost bought a Windows laptop...

[Anonymous Coward]

SQL Server can run in docker containers now, on linux even.

Re:Almost bought a Windows laptop...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm curious, what are exactly are you missing on OS X?

Re: Almost bought a Windows laptop...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just run Bootcamp and use your Apple computer.

Re:Almost bought a Windows laptop...

[phantomfive]

SQL Server Express, debuggers, the full AD infrastructure, etc

Better choice to avoid using all those altogether.

Re:Almost bought a Windows laptop...

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally someone who knows where you can stick SQL Server.

Re:Almost bought a Windows laptop...

[PCM2]

Better choice to avoid using all those altogether.

Active Directory is a way of life for many, many organizations. If that includes yours, good luck "avoiding it."

Re:Almost bought a Windows laptop...

[phantomfive]

many organizations. If that includes yours, good luck "avoiding it."

I do :)

Disclaimer certainty

[DaveM753]

Probable disclaimer from Microsoft:

Users of Microsoft Visual Studio for Mac OSX may find certain features of Visual Studio do not function as expected under the Mac OSX platform. For those users, we recommend using Visual Studio on a Microsoft Windows-based platform, to improve reliability.

Translation:

You didn't really expect us to write quality software for a competing OS that didn't eventually drive you over to Windows, did you? Silly user...

Re:Disclaimer certainty

[dontbemad]

Sounds like Microsoft would be taking a play right out of Apple's book.

Re:Disclaimer certainty

[Anonymous Coward]

You didn't really expect us to write quality software for a competing OS that didn't eventually drive you over to Windows, did you? Silly user...

It's not like they write quality software for their own OS, though. (I'm stuck with VS 2012 at work)

Re:Disclaimer certainty

[slapout]

I don't think Microsoft cares as much about Windows. I think they want you to buy their cloud services.

Re:Disclaimer certainty

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh, I guess their overriding strategy is to eventually drive people over to Linux, BSD, vim, and emacs.

Re:Disclaimer certainty

[mlw4428]

What a poor translation. Certain features may not work as expected: OSX is a completely different architecture and may things, like WCF and WPF may not function as well as they do on Windows. ADO may not be fully fleshed out. Microsoft makes fantastic developer tools - I don't think any serious developer would dispute that. If they target Visual Studio for OSX or Linux or DrDOS, you can bet your bottom dollar that Microsoft will work hard to make a REALLY GOOD IDE. I love the .NET Framework. I love Mono. I'm hoping that Microsoft moves away from a desktop OS and more towards SAAS for office functionality with fantastic developmental tools. No one has come close to Visual Studio. Eclipse, VIM, EMacs, Sublime, etc are all complete and utter crap next to Visual Studio (from the perspective of real, complex software development with multiple projects, reference management, etc).

Re:Disclaimer certainty

[MachineShedFred]

Oh, Microsoft has been doing that far longer than Apple.

See: the old Mac version of Excel where they just deleted VBA scripting, and figured nobody would notice. Then they brought it back all of a sudden in the next version and proclaimed it to be a huge feature.

I'm still waiting for an Outlook on OS X that isn't just a bad OWA front end. And they are capable of making a real Outlook on the Mac too - because they had one 15 years ago on Mac OS 9, which was killed by the Mac Apps team in a bad case of Not-Invented-Here fever because it was written by the Exchange team. Which is why it actually worked properly and supported all the features it should.

Re:Disclaimer certainty

[stooo]

>> Users of Microsoft Visual Studio for Mac OSX may find certain features of Visual Studio do not function as expected

Yeah, as usual.
Users of Microsoft Visual Studio for Windows also find certain features of Visual Studio do not function as expected.

Re:Disclaimer certainty

[Radical Moderate]

This. I work in an enterprise that uses a lot of Microsoft products, but users insist on buying Macs. Then kvetch because things never work the way they're supposed to. I wish MS would just abandon the Mac, it would save everyone a lot of disappointment and aggravation.

Re:Disclaimer certainty

[Schnapple]

You didn't really expect us to write quality software for a competing OS that didn't eventually drive you over to Windows, did you? Silly user...

I think it's probably more that anything which isn't .NET or in any way cross platform already isn't coming along for the ride. Don't expect to compile anything that needs Win32 or COM or DirectX (which is also COM), etc. You would assume the decently savvy developer would already know or guess this but you can't be too sure, plus there's bound to be some executive somewhere that's thinking "alright, now we'll be able to get our Windows app on the Mac in no time!" not understanding anything about the underlying technology stack,

Also I would imagine what gets released this week is essentially going to be a free preview that's unfinished so naturally some stuff just isn't going to work right.

Re: Disclaimer certainty

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft in the past had a version of Visual Studio for Macintosh. It was well received. And Microsoft cancelled it after one release. This latest version is a renamed version of Xamarin with some additions like MSBuild integration...

Re:Disclaimer certainty

[Anonymous Coward]

"Users of Microsoft Visual Studio for Mac OSX may find certain features of Visual Studio do not function as expected under the Mac OSX platform. For those users, we recommend using Visual Studio on a Microsoft Windows-based platform, to improve reliability."

Well if those functions as expected in Windows then we are better off I say.

Re:Disclaimer certainty

[Anonymous Coward]

Or more accurately: Do you have any idea how much time and money it would take to bring every feature and every extension across to OSX for an IDE that has been around for decades? We can't even promise a 64bit version on Windows...

Re:Disclaimer certainty

[blindseer]

I wish MS would just abandon the Mac, it would save everyone a lot of disappointment and aggravation.

You don't think that they tried? I remember some past attempts Microsoft had made in killing off their Mac products and it nearly ended them. One of the big selling points in many Microsoft products is that they work just as well (or rather just as poorly) on Windows and Mac. If they killed their Mac products do you believe all the Mac users would just switch to running Windows? This would be especially true now that most every Office file format has been reverse engineered well enough that people make competing products that can open and save those files with little issue. They might have to use an older file format but that has almost always been the case for people since not everyone upgrades their software at the same time, and old files need to be accessed in the future.

There was also that little matter of Microsoft being investigated for anti-competitive practices. Governments frown on such things. Also, governments are big customers to Microsoft. If they kill off their Mac products then that would bring government down on them for monopolistic practices again, cause governments to look at Mac compatible alternative, and quite likely both.

If we are going to make wishes then I have some of my own. I wish Microsoft would split into two. One company for the OS, and another for the software. This might stop the favoritism for Windows and force them to make office products and such that are equals for every OS. Another alternative wish is for Microsoft to merge with a few major hardware makers and sell their OS linked to the hardware like Apple does. As someone that has to support both Mac and Windows I will say that I see far more driver and hardware oddities on Windows than Mac and it gets annoying. There are a lot of reasons why none of this is likely.

While we are wishing then why not consider wishing for MS to abandon Windows? I mean that is probably just as likely as MS abandoning Mac. It would also give you what you want, a single operating system for you to deal with. Think about it, who does the kvetching more? Is it just one group or the other or do both complain about equally? I've worked in Mac heavy and Windows heavy environments before and the complaints generally came from those that had the room to complain. People figured out when the squeaky wheels got greased and when those wheels were more likely to get replaced.

I will say that I have no idea who you are, where you work, what kind of work you do, and so on. I just know what things were like for me and from the little you said I have my theories on what might be happening. I also know that there is more than one way to grant your wish, and you may want to be careful what you wish for because you just might get it.

Re:Disclaimer certainty

[Anonymous Coward]

This is about the same amount of 'support' when they did this before. From VC++ 2.0 thru Visual c+++ 4.2 for Macintosh.

It 'worked' but not very well. At the same time Apple had about the same rep moving software back over to windows.

Re:Disclaimer certainty

[Anonymous Coward]

Can confirm.

Re:Disclaimer certainty

[david_thornley]

Some years ago, I had a friend who worked for Microsoft on Mac software. He said that, after every time top management publicly blasted the Mac, they'd send someone over to his area to say "Don't worry, guys, that's just PR. You make lots of money for us, and we like money."

Who cares? When will it come to Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares? When will it come to Linux?

Re:Who cares? When will it come to Linux?

[DickBreath]

That was also my first question.

Of course, I'm not sure that I would care, even if they announced it was available today. There would be some catch. Maybe the EULA allows Microsoft to sneak in while you are sleeping and harvest your organs. (Assuming your internet service provider hasn't already taken them first.)

Qt

[saider]

I've been using Qt for this purpose for years.

Re:Qt

[hublan]

I've been using Qt for this purpose for years.

If only the LLDB bridge in QtCreator wouldn't freeze every time you so much as sneezed, then I'd be very happy.

It's like it's an unattainable goal to make a decent visual debugger that is not Visual Studio.

Re:Qt

[Anonymous Coward]

C# is Roslyn, everywhere.

Re:Qt

[phantomfive]

Question......how is QT backwards compatibility? I've been hearing complaints that things keep breaking.

Re:Qt

[Anonymous Coward]

Qt doesn't work on the last few versions of OSX. Well, it works. But only if you compile the program on an older OSX version and move the executable to the latest OSX. And only if you compile with gcc rather than clang (which is included in XCode).

What's Good About Visual Studio?

[Anonymous Coward]

I usual Visual Studio from version 6 to 2010 for MFC development and found it got worse and worse with each new version. The interface turned into a train wreck and reduced your productivity and made it unpleasant to work with. The install size became absurd with it installing a lot of crap you didn't want (even if you unchecked all components the install size was still 8GB). Despite the insane bloat it lacked basic functionality (why wasn't something like Visual Leak Detector included as standard?). Furthermore, Microsofted treated C++ as a second class citizen while they focused on crap like .NET and HTML+Javascript.

In the end I got sick of it all and now use Qt in Qt Creator. Microsoft's development strategy appears to be "continue development until the product is unusable". They've done this with Windows, Office and Visual Studio. I'm therefore left wondering why any Mac user would want Visual Studio? Surely people have switched to a Mac because they're sick of Microsoft's ever-worsening software.

Re:What's Good About Visual Studio?

[shutdown -p now]

Since this is basically rebranded Xamarin Studio, it doesn't really have much to do with VS. Or C++, for that matter.

Re:What's Good About Visual Studio?

[Yunzil]

Microsoft's development strategy appears to be "continue development until the product is unusable".

So, like every other software application in the world then?

Plan9 - because, fuck you

[Anonymous Coward]

' Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Filter error: You can type more than that for your comment.

Microsoft pulled the announcement

[trawg]

The original announcement that was the source of the article in the OP has since been pulled; I've seen mention that it was just posted too early. Presumably it will be back at the regularly scheduled time or perhaps earlier when they realise that the genie is out of the bottle.

How can it? VS is 32 bit

[Anonymous Coward]

If it can do 64 bit IDE then why not PCs?

Re: How can it? VS is 32 bit

[DaHat]

Who said VS can't be built by MS to be 64 bit on Windows? For the time being they have simply made the choice not to.

It will be interesting to see how much code charging there is between Windows and Mac versions.

Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Will it crap out and hang as often as VS does on my Windows machine?

The debugger was very good.

[soft_guy]

I haven't used Visual studio for any real work since 2008, but as I recall their debugger was fantastic for debugging C++. The other aspects of it were kinda "meh", but the debugger was freaking amazing. (And I'm a Mac/Linux guy who uses either Xcode or Makefiles most of the time.)

Re:The debugger was very good.

[ripvlan]

Yes it is fantastic. I grew up on dbx and xdbx (at least AIX version added wonderful stuff). WinDbg is a frustrating mess of amazing-power coupled to arcane commands. VS lays over this what xdbx did for dbx.

Best VS debugger feature was IntelliTrace (C# / .NET "only" feature). Still need to have the Enterprise or Ultimate license - but if you have it - wow. One can walk code backwards from a break-point looking to answer the inevitable question "how did execution get to this line?"

Although none of the MS tools provides "where" like a dbx/core dump provides (although WinDbg can come close).

For all of the hate that some spew at MS - the one thing they have always been good at is ease of access for complex technology. SQL Server - easy to use. VS - easy to code. Windows 8 - never mind.

Re:The debugger was very good.

[Xest]

Visual Studio is the best of breed IDE slowly being made worse in an attempt to capture "Web 2.0" marketshare from PHP, node.js developers and the like whilst dragging the whole IDE down to their level and failing their core market where all the enterprise licensing (i.e. the bulk of their income) comes from - the business world that uses languages like C, C# and C++.

If you've not used it since 2008, you've not really missed much, it peaked at 2010 and has become much worse since as features have been removed and the IDE has become less usable and less stable. They're slowly getting it back up with 2015, but christ 2012 was an abomination that should never have been released.

Amusingly it's not the first time this happened, it's almost an exact repeat of a decade ago - Visual Studio .NET 2002 was horrendous, so they release 2003 to make it slightly less horrendous, 2015 was a bit better, but 2008 was the first time it really became solid, stable, and functional again then 2010 topped it all off. We're seeing the exact same pattern now - 2012 like 2002 shouldn't have been released, 2013 like 2003 is an attempt to fix the fundamentally broken 2012/2002, and 2015 like 2005 is a slight improvement where the features and functionality are returning but the stability still leaves a lot to be desired. Only another year and a half then until 2018 maybe that will hopefully be like 2008 was - stable, functional, then by 2020 we can have an IDE with nothing much to complain about again, maybe. Or maybe they'll just make the menus shout at us in capital letters and the icons lose all discernible features and meaning again for absolutely no good reason at all, who knows.

#NeverMacVS

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Sorry, I've seen Microsoft's flaky support of Skype for Business, various iterations of Office, and others on Mac, and I just can't trust them with my dev environment. I'll still keep my .NET dev stuff on a stable of Windows 10 laptops and my everything else on the Mac.

Re:#NeverMacVS

[Baby Duck]

You are totally correct about Skype and Office on Mac.

VS used to be good, but I'm out of date

[Anonymous Coward]

... is this the one with ALL CAPS MENUS and achievements that they're porting to the Mac?

Re:VS used to be good, but I'm out of date

[blackpaw]

VC 2015 dropped the all caps menus, went back to a sane UI. *Much* better than 2013

Re:VS used to be good, but I'm out of date

[LoneBoco]

You've been able to turn those off for a long time now, and I believe Visual Studio 2015 defaults to title case styling.

Mobile First Cloud First

[speedplane]

a true mobile-first, cloud-first development tool

There can be only one!

Re:Mobile First Cloud First

[Anonymous Coward]

Knowing what MS are like these days, I expect cloud first = we upload everything you do to Microsoft's servers whether you like it or not.

to bad there no real workstations on the mac

[Joe_Dragon]

to bad there no real workstations on the mac.

the mac pro is 3 years old and was cut down from dual cpu to 1 cpu. If you want real power HP, DELL, Supermicro, and others have it for you.

Re:to bad there no real workstations on the mac

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not going to dispute that the Mac Pro has been unchanged for years. I'll leave the "not a workstation" as a matter of opinion. But I went to the Apple website and I was able to do a BTO for a dual CPU, 12 core, system. It starts at $7000 or so but Apple will sell them. Unless I missed something your claim is demonstrably false.

Re:to bad there no real workstations on the mac

[Joe_Dragon]

Dual cpu?

The trash can does not have that or build in storage over 1TB

Re:to bad there no real workstations on the mac

[blindseer]

When Apple switched from offering 2 CPUs to only 1 the number of cores available as BTO options did not change, that remained as up to 12 cores. What you are arguing over sounds like a no true Scotsman fallacy.

If you are arguing that anything with less than 16 cores is a "toy" then that is a different argument. I fail to see the difference between having 2 CPUs with 6 cores each and having a single CPU with 12 cores. I'm sure that there are differences in many ways, just none that matter to most buyers.

Re:to bad there no real workstations on the mac

[Joe_Dragon]

Cutting from 2 to 1 also cut the number of PCI-E channels and ram channels.

With apple they have hit the pci-e wall so unless they cut down the pci-e going to the video cards or add an 2th cpu they can't do TB 3.0 or 2 storage cards.

Re:to bad there no real workstations on the mac

[blindseer]

In other words Apple created a computer that could be called balanced, optimal, or efficient. The Mac Pro does not have TB3, 2 storage cards, and so on. If they add such things in a future design, and fail to also add a 2nd CPU then you may have a point.

Re:Visual Studio Suckage

[Anonymous Coward]

Hahahha

"left-pad is the perfect example of the new frontier of software engineering. It's a small, easily composable function offered as an individual package. Using package managers, it can be trivially imported into other programs so that no one ever has to write the same code twice, and everyone can focus only on solving new problems. These micro-packages can be individually tested, and optimized, and handle far more edge cases than if everyone were to re-implement left-pad every time it is needed.
Instead, the upstream can handle all issues, and the end user can treat the upstream package like a black box, assuming that everything is handled upstream and that nothing will go wrong upstream. It is extremely unlikely that upstream will break things, and this frees the programmer to focus on innovating and moving fast."

VS already sensible for version control?

[Anonymous Coward]

So does VS still keep a reference of all project files in sln and proj files? This works wonders with Git and other version control tools. Hint to MS: everything is a file (see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy)

Does VS still save files in UTF-16 instead of UTF-8 (that rest of the world uses)? UTF-16, again, works wonders with Git by default.

Do VS templates still generate single line XML files (i.e. text files without line breaks)? You start to get the point: this works wonderfully with version control when you want to compare changes.

Is there already a 64-bit version of VS? Why not, 64-bit architecture seems not to be a problem for the rest of the world? Hint: value your source code more than your binaries and legacy-platform compatibility.

I could go on but I won't bother. MS is slowly inventing Unix while others are already there.

I'd use it

[paulxnuke]

My all-time favorite IDE was CodeWarrior on classic Mac (the Windows version was the best on that platform at the time.) I tried Visual Studio 6 and wasn't impressed.

Then I had to use VS every day and got used to it. Most of its problems were/are horrific UI design (hidden/obfuscated settings!) and twitchiness (hangs; recreating projects from scratch when they refuse to build.) Overall usability is now quite good, and automation (intellisense, etc) is first rate.

I haven't tried XCode recently, last time it was still a mix of all the things I didn't like about the early VS's. It's free and I could get used to it if I had to work on Mac's: Apple got all the money they will ever get from me between 1986 and 2008 or so. (I still have one MacBook left, mostly running Windows, from the days when I still thought OS X would eventually suck less.)

I'd be delighted to have a modern VS on Macs for odd projects that need a text editor and project manager. I've experimented with Code for fiction writing, not bad (lots of customization.)

Delphi's did it LONG ago... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject & https://www.embarcadero.com/pr... for cross-platform development across PC's & smartphones galore...

APK

P.S.=> It's what I used to create APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-4 32/64-bit https://www.google.com/search?... (& it's a pity they killed "Kylix" for Linux - as it did Linux programs also (does ANDROID which IS a form of Linux though so imo, that's doable too) - it'd do it ALL)... apk

Re:Delphi's did it LONG ago... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

An app that can't even deduplicate a list without freezing and being labeled non-responsive by Windows is not much of an endorsement for the language! Granted, that's just incompetence on your part more than anything else, but I'd still say Delphi has been a steaming pile since Microsoft poached Anders.

Re:Visual Studio Suckage

[SScorpio]

Visual Studio 15, next version not VS2015 which is actually version 14 go Microsoft numbering, is supposed to fix this.

It's broken out so you only install what you need to you'll have to much smaller footprint and patching will be faster. If you do a full install of everything it will probably still be slow. But you'll be able to choose a setup like I want to do just Windows apps in C# and it only installs the bare minimum to make that work.

Re: How can it? VS is 32 bit

[Anonymous Coward]

Time. Has. Said. So.

VS. Codebase. Is. Archaic.

Everything. Done. To. VS. Now. Is. An. Attempt. to. Work-. Around. Memory. Constraints.

Ipso. Fatso. Forgetso.

It's a Monodevelop/Xamarin Ripp with MS Logo.

[Qbertino]

No point in getting all excited about it.

Re: How can it? VS is 32 bit

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the MS devs wrote an angry article on how it's developers fault we need more than 2GB of memory and besides, 64-bit is slower because the CPU caches (L1,L2,L3) are the same size. Counter arguments that "the OS is 64-bit so this is moot" were rebuked with "UR DUMB LOL".

Different product

[kosmosik]

According to Ars Technica it is different product

http://arstechnica.com/informa...

Visual Studio for Mac isn't, in fact, Visual Studio at all. Instead, it's the latest iteration of Xamarin Studio, the cross-platform C# development environment that Microsoft inherited when it bought Xamarin, developers of cross-platform .NET-based mobile development tools, last year.

These are two very different products, and the real Windows Visual Studio is the more capable product.

Qt

[AncalagonTotof]

I'm already using Qt and am happy to stay away from the painful VS.
- under Windows, Qt uses gcc/MinGW (or VS compiler if you wish)
- under Mac OS X, Qt uses XCode compiler
- under Linux, Qt uses native and easily installed gcc

At the time of the version 3, I also had the opportunity to work with the embedded version (user interface in trains, running on PPC computers).

So there is Qt, and there are many other solutions described in the other comments. M$, what are you doing here, then ?

By the way, since Skype is made using Qt : M$, please, explain why there are so many differences between versions, especially with the Linux one ? Need some lessons in portability ?

Re: How can it? VS is 32 bit

[OhPlz]

MS said they're not going to, I posted the announcement here some months back. Devs are still whining about it in the initial request on one of their feedback sites.

"give Windows a try again"

[Anonymous Coward]

I think almost all Mac users have used Windows in the past and most of us will never go back to that hell again. There is a reason why companies like IBM is switching to Mac and Mac OSX; It is by far a superior product too anything Microsoft have put out on the market.

Telemetry fully enabled

[bigbang137]

It will no doubt come with telemetry fully enabled by default, perhaps with direct parallel feeds to FBI, NSA, and the CIA.

Re:Telemetry fully enabled

[bigbang137]

You forgot the addition of telemetry to binaries.

Windows Form on OSX?

[Anonymous Coward]

Any chance this will mean we'll have the ability to finally do nice looking multi platform forms? Windows forms or something like it on OSX?

Xamarin Studio supports GTK, but it is old and yuck, and Xamarin Forms don't work for anything other than mobile.

Re:Windows Form on OSX?

[Anonymous Coward]

See above; this is just Xamarin Studio rebranded under the Visual Studio moniker; similar to how their Atom-clone was branded under the Visual Studio moniker.

Yes! I love macOS but Xcode is horrible

[mfearby]

I would gladly switch to Visual Studio on Mac since Xcode feels like a straight jacket. I want file-based tabs, not workspace-tabs and Visual Studio gives me proper tabs. If I could develop macOS & iOS apps using Visual Studio, then I'll never need Xcode again :-)

Re:Visual Studio Suckage

[Anonymous Coward]

Frameworks suck. They're the modern version of DLL hell.

Fuck out of here with your EEE

[Anonymous Coward]

Really, just fuck off. And when you get there, fuck off some more.
And then...... You know where to go from there..

Keep your poison out of system. We do not want your diseased virus delivery system invading our space.

Nothing good will come of this. So really, just fuck off with that.

Real /.'ers disagree (want more?)

[Anonymous Coward]

his hosts program is actually pretty good by xenotransplant

his hosts tool is actually useful for those cases in which one does indeed want to locally block stuff outright while consuming minimum system resources by alexgieg

I've never tried to belittle (APK's) work, I've flat out said it's good by BronsCon

take a look at the APK hosts file engine by SuperKendall

APK is kinda right. I've tried his hosts file generating software. It works by bmo

APK is totally right on this count. Adblock Plus on Firefox mobile is a dog on older, or lower end, phones. A hostfile based adblocker makes for a much better experience by chihowa

I like your host file system by Karmashock

I find your hosts file admirable by vel-ex-tech

When its hour glass cursor shows? It's busy working dumbass & when YOU can do better?? Then talk.

APK

P.S.=> See subject & you're clearly outnumbered + making a huge blunder (under an unidentifiable ac post too trolling (gee, go figure))... apk

Re:Real /.'ers disagree (want more?)

[DMFNR]

The hourglass is meaningless when Windows has marked the program as non-responsive. If a program is stuck in an infinite loop it will show an hourglass too, how is a user going to know the difference? When I see a program labeled as "Not Responding" I give it a few seconds to sort itself out and then I force kill it. This has been a solved problem for decades now, it's terrible user interface design, and it points to piss poor coding internally.

Do better then talk? Here is the code to deduplicate a TStringList while updating a progress bar and preventing your app from being labeled as non-responsive:

    OrigStringList.LoadFromFile('names.txt');
    DedupStringList.Sorted := True;
    DedupStringList.Duplicates := dupIgnore;
    for i := 0 to OrigStringList.Count - 1 do
    begin
            DedupStringList.Add(OrigStringList[i]);
            if i mod 1000 = 0 then
            begin
                  ProgressBar1.StepIt;
                  Application.ProcessMessages;
            end;
    end;

Brain dead simple, tested on a Pentium Dual Core T4500 laptop with 2GB of memory, sample data set was 250 unique first and last names randomly distributed over 6,000,000 entries creating an 84 MB text file. In a simple console application, the file was loaded to OrigStringList and deduplicated by transferring the to another TStringList with TStringList.Duplicates set to dupIgnore using TStringList.AddStrings(). This took 43 seconds and resulted in DedupStringList containing the original 250 unique strings. For the next test the same dataset was used in a graphical application using the code above to deduplicate the list. It took 46 seconds to process, updated the progress bar, and the application remained responsive allowing the window to be moved, minimized and maximized, as was not labelled "Not Responding" by the Task Manager. That can be further spread up by increasing the number of iterations between calls to Application.ProcessMessages and how often the progress bar is updated, that can be adjusted to the number of entries be processed, the type of progress bar being updated, etc etc. Using this method you'll want to either disable the form, or better yet, disable the individual controls that you don't want users clicking during the processing. You'll definitely want to disable the De-Deplicate button to prevent inpatient users from clicking it multiple times and stuffing the message queue.

That's the Amateur Hour was of doing this, all simple intrinsic methods and minimal work on your part and still performant enough. Especially as you advertise your program as being "multi-threaded" it is just embarrassing that your UI locks during processing. That leads me to the better method, doing your processing in a background thread and updating your UI with TThread.Synchronize, but the above method is good enough for a simple list processing app. Your app ran on my desktop, an Intel i7 4790 with 16GB memory and was still not responding after MINUTES of processing. This is absolutely ridiculously under-performant when we're talking about megabytes of data, even with fancy Delphi string processing. You constantly harp on the speed of in-browser ad blocking, so ask yourself this: if these extensions (which I believe are written in JavaScript!) can run through their blacklists on every page load in seconds, if they can install and update their lists in seconds, how come your app can't process a few million entries is less than five minutes using native code? The answer is very basic knowledge of data structures and algorithms on behalf of the developers.

MS - NOW porting viruses!

[ebvwfbw]

Go ahead, install this stuff on your mac, what could happen?

Next thing you know, a big skull and crossbones shows up on your screen telling you to call - rasomware fix.
Since you're on a mac, you have just 1 day to pay up with bitcoin.

StringList has that built-in (simple)

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: & when you build a better program of this nature, then talk - others here disagree w/ you bigtime https://apple.slashdot.org/com...

Proof it's a built-in inherent property of stringlist object-> lStringList.Duplicates:= dupIgnore;

(NOW THAT is 'brain dead simple' as it uses what's already built into a stringlist object & I use non-visible/non-gui stringlists - what you THINK is a GUI stringlist in my program, isn't... that has TOO MANY DAMN OVERHEADS IN IT & on updating it (if you remove dups or delete objects) SLOWS IT DOWN UPDATING SO BADLY, I opted NOT to use it!)

APK

P.S.=> Your suggestion is not only doing needless work but it is AMATEUR HOUR stupidity when the functionality is already there & others clearly disagree w/ your "findings" (unidentifiable ac troll w/ no balls = you & you sure TALK a lot, but show us you can DO BETTER THAN I, not some code snippet you stole from online somewhere, but a FULL PROGRAM... ok?) apk

Additionally (more screwups of yours)

[Anonymous Coward]

You use a loop & slow it w/ Application.ProcessMessages calls (yes, they slow it) I don't need that loop - as I said - the STRINGLIST OBJECT has that built in for loading itself dumbass - I don't NEED a loop to deduplication items in my stringlist (I use non-gui version which has HORRIBLE UPDATE TIME when you add/remove or dedup items in it, so I went non-gui... again - what you see in my program displaying the data is NOT A GUI STRINGLIST VCL CONTROL!)

You are wrong from the get go on SEVERAL LEVELS (& bad architecture - that's hilarious & priceless - especially from someone trying to tell me how to do this program WHEN YOU HAVEN'T DONE A BETTER PROGRAM OF THIS KIND YOURSELF!):

1.) Misidentifying the control I used to display data
2.) SLOWING A LOOP w/ Application.ProcessMessages

But MOST OF ALL trying to tell ME "what to do" when YOU haven't done BETTER yourself... you're all hot air (your lack of doing better shows you probably also just looked that up online @ stackexchange but couldn't write a program yourself is my guess here as far as YOU are concerned).

Oh, & do I need to mention THIS again (which you 'conveniently ignored')?

I think so - OTHERS DON'T HAVE ANY PROBLEMS WITH MY WORK AND LIKE IT https://apple.slashdot.org/com...

(Do they do THAT for YOU? No, lol... nuff said!)

APK

P.S.=> You're laughable - talking out your ass with nothing to show for it... apk

LMAO - mine ~10% faster... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: 40 seconds here You also slow your unnecessary loop (on 4790k CPU) w/ application.processmessages stupidly updating progressbars on a GUI control data load (again unnecessary & SLOWER too w/ overheads galore!).

The IDEA is to get the job done w/ least code possible so it's FASTER - mine is (more code = slower, any FOOL knows that (except you)).

I mean WHY BOTHER WITH SHOWING DATA LOADING? IT SLOWS IT DOWN fool & yes, YOURS IS SLOWER BY NEARLY 10%!!! Which is probably your stupid use of Application.ProcessMessages & updating progress bars stupidly/needlessly in a quick seconds long operation (which is SLOWER than mine for the reasons above no less also)!

I do it in the LEAST amount of code & on dedup, minus GUI VCL control overheads too (unlike your alleged program that's non-gui, which of course SHOULD mean it's faster than mine & clearly, it's not)

I merely use what a stringlist non-gui object has natively for dedup for reload of data into gui VCL control from a stringlist (non-gui, too much overheads vs. non-visible stringlist object).

* LMAO! You failed on many levels!

(Especially slowing your stringlist processing using a loop AND displaying the LOADED ITEMS INTO A GUI CONTROL which is STUPID, slower, & unncessary)

(Above ALL else: Let's see a 'big talker' like YOU build a BETTER PROGRAM of this nature vs. mere "hot air" from you... ok?)

APK

P.S.=> So, let's see you make a program of this type THAT USERS LIKE & USE + BIG NAMES like Malwarebytes' folks HOSTING & RECOMMENDING IT TOO as mine is https://apple.slashdot.org/com... - let's SEE that outta you - go for it, talker... HOWEVER then you'd merely be IMITATING ME (copycat) & "Imitation IS the sincerest form of FLATTERY + shows you have NO ORIGINAL THOUGHT OF YOUR OWN... apk

Better vs. Application.Processmessages

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: Another AMATEUR f'up of yours IS that. Use REFRESH &/or UPDATE of progressbar object IF you stupidly use a loop for loading a list (dumb) when it has a built in load already!

ProgressBar1.Update; (preferred)

or

ProgressBar1.Refresh;

Additionally, like old Visual Basic DoEvents? Application.ProcessMessages IS NOT GUARANTEED TO UPDATE A GUI CONTROL via app level (messages drop stupid) lol, you'd have been BETTER OFF doing a Form.Update/Form.Refresh (if you stupidly do it @ APP level) - update/refresh IN THE VCL ITSELF (if dumb enough to loop this as YOU are) works better & is more guaranteed!

Why LOOP it though? You're inefficient! The LOAD method of a list (or data control) doesn't NEED it (much less to be looped as you stupidly did)!

Set the property as NO DUPS ALLOWED & LOAD IT (efficient)!

You're writing code that is unecessary - now THAT is dumb & amateurish (as well as using a less efficient method to do the work of updating a list on load (loops THAT ARE NOT NEEDED? Please, then compounding it by SLOWING IT with Application.ProcessMessages too when a REFRESH or UPDATE property of those objects does it better @ the VCL CONTROL LEVEL LOCALIZING IT TO SAID CONTROL (not app level, dumb)? LMAO - please!

* You're all talk & it shows or rather, DOESN'T SHOW since you are ALL TALK & no proof!

APK

P.S.=> Big talker, when you get Malwarebytes' folks to HOST & RECOMMEND work YOU do (none I see, lol)? Then, talk.

When other /.'ers say YOUR WORK IS GOOD AS THEY DO MINE & I've got more of these too https://apple.slashdot.org/com... ?? THEN, talk!

See - all you DO is 'talk' but I don't see your work (which would again, only be MERE IMITIATION, the sincerest form of flattery - you can't win)... apk

Want to cede CPU better?

[Anonymous Coward]

This, like you NOT using ProgressBar1.Update &/or .Refresh methods - Sleep API vs. Application.ProcessMessages (LOL).

Your CLASSIC f up on progressbar update trying app level vs. localizing it into the CONTROL itself via ProgressBar1.Update &/or ProgressBar1.Refresh as I noted here https://apple.slashdot.org/com... is priceless... lol!

* Why you're LOOPING a load (unnecessary) for blows me away (more code for NO real good reason) - VCL controls (especially for data) ALREADY HAVE IT BUILT IN (just like non-visible stringlist objects have dedup, so do VCL no dups allowed controls).

(Yes, Delphi 'abstracts away' API calls like C++ does, but going ABSOLUTELY direct is always a BETTER way - just like ProgressBar update & refresh is better vs. STUPID app level form control updates you used UNNECESSARILY - pointless & more code than is required + associated overheads, lol...)

APK

P.S.=> Again though & above ALL else - don't "take shots" at me when YOU HAVEN'T DEMONSTRATABLY SHOWN YOU HAVE DONE A BETTER ACTUAL PROGRAM Mr. "hot air" bs - or, I'll cut you to ribbons & SHOOT YOU DOWN!

Just like I did on your DUMB use of Application.ProcessMessages which like VB DoEvents is KNOWN to NOT HAVE GUARANTEED UPDATE on VCL controls as it drops messages (vs. ProgressBar1.Update or ProgressBar1.Refresh)

IRONIC: My captcha is CLOBBER (you have been clobbered on SEVERAL LEVELS here, chump)... apk

The FINAL "deathblow" VCL threadsafety

[Anonymous Coward]

"That leads me to the better method, doing your processing in a background thread and updating your UI with TThread.Synchronize" - by DMFNR ( 1986182 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2016 @07:59PM (#53293313)

Are VCL gui controls GUARANTEED 100% absolutely threadsafe? No, they are not - you're a fool!

BIGGEST FOOL I EVER HEARD SHOOT HIS MOUTH OFF ON /. TRYING TO "TELL ME HOW IT IS" when I am NOW going to let you shoot yourself in the foot even more (more than your STUPID use of Application.ProcessMessages on update of progressbars (unneeded, extra code for NO good reason, it's a dataload of objects with already built in dedup to begin with lol) VS. LOCALIZING SAID UPDATE INTO THE ALREADY BUILT IN METHODS (.Refresh/.Update) IN PROGRESSBARS & OTHER CONTROLS ala https://apple.slashdot.org/com...

(Clue/FACT: VCL are not guaranteed threadsafe amateur, which is WHY I don't TThread create updates on them like a DUMB FUCK like YOU does, but Application.ProcessMessages WILL DROP MESSAGES like VB DoEvents does!)

APK

P.S.=> The BIGGEST LAUGH I have @ you is TALKING OUT YOUR ASS but not SHOWING US you've done a better program of this nature (anyone can 'talk' but you talk out your ass & make HUGE mistakes too, lol, biggest IS THIS)? Please, lol...

SHOW US THE LIKES OF MALWAREBYTES hosts & RECOMMENDS YOUR WORK AS I CAN + that /.'ers LIKE & USE YOUR WORK also recommending it (& I have more than these here by FAR, you don't) https://apple.slashdot.org/com...

Best part is this - next time your butthurt ass tries this? I just toss these NUMEROUS HUGE FAILS OF YOURS right back @ ya, lol... apk

Re:The FINAL "deathblow" VCL threadsafety

[DMFNR]

What if someone want's to minimize your program while it is processing? What if someone want's to move it to a different monitor while they do some other work? What if they want to close it? They can't, because you're not processing any redraw events or anything while you're working on your list! In this case it doesn't matter if Application.ProcessMessages drops events or not, it's a hack to keep your UI somewhat responsive to the window manager.

As far as the VCL not being threadsafe, that is correct, however I don't think you understand what that means. All UI updates should be handled from the main thread, which is why you do the processing in a background thread and use TThread.Synchronize to update the UI.

RTFM:
http://docwiki.embarcadero.com/Libraries/Seattle/en/System.Classes.TThread.Synchronize

Using a few cpu cycles to update your UI and process messages from the window manager isn't bad practice, it's good design. Accuracy over speed is just a silly argument, computers don't make mistakes, programmers do. The fact that you are throwing a tantrum over this tells me writing a "Host Files Engine" is most likely the biggest project you have ever worked on. I don't care if a few people on Slashdot use your program or that MalwareBytes says it is safe, I'm glad your decade of spamming, stalking, and trolling has paid off.

If anyone is interested in using a large host file to block ads I recommend checking out StevenBlack's unified host file on GitHub. It's written in what APK calls a "slow interperted language", but somehow it's still faster than his shitty Delphi app!
https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts

Re:The FINAL "deathblow" VCL threadsafety

[Anonymous Coward]

What if you had something to show for yourself we can see and criticize dfmnr? You're lots of talk/no action or substance.

Time to tear you apart point by point again

[Anonymous Coward]

OTHERS do the talking for me to shut your "ne'er-do-well" do nothing mouth whimp https://apple.slashdot.org/com...

Including the likes of Malwarebytes folks hosting & recommending my work... how about you? Nope, lol!

NOW TO YOUR SO-CALLED "POINTS" (to tear them up & you with them):

Run in Windows 7 AeroGlass you can move the window all you like. It minimizes just fine by the way also. Win32/GDI or Aeroglass! When it minimizes it also goes into 'background processing mode' lowering its CPU use to LOW.

LOL - "Gosh, let's take chances on data dropping putting UNSAFE on THREADS vcl controls risks into play" (lmao).

LMAO - Let's do a KNOWN message dropper in Application.ProcessMessages for refreshing a screen (which is KNOWN to NOT REFRESH A CONTROL AS WELL as its own methods do).

Let's use extra steps on CPU ceding using Application.ProcessMessages (when direct WinAPI calls to SLEEP does a better more direct job).

HOWEVER, above ALL else?

LOL - let's do a LOOPED LOAD of a control (lagging it with application.processmessages STUPIDLY as shown above to refresh a control) to SLOW IT UP, lol - "performance (not) by DMFNR (lmao) WHEN IT DOESN'T NEED THAT (only set no dupes property & use load method).

Don't even TRY tell me "how it is done" after all of those FUCKUPS of yours AND NO CODE YOU CAN SHOW US IN A PROGRAM THAT WORKS (mine does, others say so & like + use it (1,000's of them in fact).

Synchronize is not a guarantee of perfection in all conditions either you fool!

* Do you even KNOW what you're talking about OR did you just read it on StackExchange?

After all - I don't see ANY programs from YOU fake name online user (for your FAKE life & non-existent programs... you're all talk & talk full of mistakes).

Nobody here (or elsewhere) says anything good about YOUR non-existent work (they do mine) - gosh, I wonder why? LOL - DMFNR writes perfect code. How? Code with NO LINES has no errors, lol! DMFNR sure likes to dish out criticism (yet doesn't do a damn thing himself in programs) & calls MY work 'shitty'?

You're FULL of hot air & no substance (show us a program of yours - obviously, you can't).

Computers DO make mistakes stupid: Ever heard of REALTIME programming? Do you know WHY it exists? It guarantees all data gets there. Other systems do not! Do you know why ECC RAM exists too? Same idea albeit in hardware. You are SO full of it, it stinks.

Dumb ass: I've written over 40 LARGE systems that run companies entire datasystems into the MULTI-MILLION LINE code range & they're bulletproof & bugfree for decades (since 1982 BOY) & 100's of smaller programs (like hosts engine) for fun on the side ( & yes on the job too)

APK

P.S.=> Can't handle I shredded you AGAIN a second time (more like 5th lol after that list above)? Obviously not... apk

Data gather = linear blocking operation

[Anonymous Coward]

"That leads me to the better method, doing your processing in a background thread and updating your UI with TThread.Synchronize, but the above method is good enough for a simple list processing app" - by DMFNR ( 1986182 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2016 @07:59PM (#53293313)

See subject: Thread use on a progressbar VCL = UNSAFE & especially on a blocking load process which you SLOW UP dropping messages (application.processmessages does vs. update/refresh native to progressbar methods)!

THERE IS ALSO THUS NO POINT IN PUTTING THE INITIAL non-visible StringList DATA GATHER, SORT & DEDUP ON A THREAD EITHER or SLOWING IT IN A LOOP DUMBFUCK!

It's literally a blocking op as YOU NEED THE DATA FIRST minus risks on threading a VCL!

(...& all you need is to set the NoDup property of the StringList & LOAD a control - as FAST as possible (which I do, you don't)).

Your point is about progressbar updates via THREADS? DUMB! Extremely risk-taking DUMB!

It is SO short of a process (30 seconds over roughly 6++ million records on sort/dedup) it doesn't NEED LOOPS stupid that slows it down AND takes VCL threading risks!

A simple set of lStringList.Duplicates:= dupIgnore; & then lStringList.Load (filename) does the job FASTER by far!

Plus, you STUPID little noob amateur, using a Sleep API call directly in your SLOWER METHOD (vs. Application.ProcessMessages which abstracts that in the end but does add overhead) would have been better

HOWEVER AGAIN:

BIGGEST MISTAKE YOU MADE dumbfuck?

It was about progressbar updates on a THREAD, Yes PER YOU NO LESS & THAT IS A VCL CONTROL - you later told me "put it on a thread"!

THE VCL IS NOT GUARANTEED THREADSAFE (the Win32 api is though) SO YOU TAKE RISKS ON DROPPING DATA (not mere messagepassing updates this time but ACTUAL DATA).

(Additionally it's no background op dumbo - & it has to GET THE DATA FIRST prior to load which YOU SLOW UP too, no less - it is a CLEANLY LINEAR OPERATION (get data, sort, dedup & load))

APK

P.S.=> Now, ABOVE ALL ELSE?

Don't EVER try tell ME "how it works" shithead, when YOU HAVE NOT DONE THIS WORK YOURSELF & I have, others like & use it (big names, not just /.'ers which you have only seen SOME of, I have more) - prove otherwise, show us a working hostsfile program (you can't)... apk