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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.
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.
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.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.