Open Source


VS Code Continues Java Blitz with Bevy of New Extensions

After several improvements to a popular Java debugger, the VS Code team has added more extensions to support JUnit testing, Maven, Tomcat and Checkstyle.

Microsoft Continues to Improve Java Debugger for VS Code Editor

Fifth update in the past three months improves expression evaluation, adds step filter for bypassing certain code.

Unity Replaces Mono-Based IDE with Visual Studio

The popular Unity game development platform has dropped its default Mono-based IDE in favor of Visual Studio products in order to leverage new C# and scripting features.

Visual Studio Code Gets Boost for Java, Spring Boot Development

As part of a wide-ranging collaboration with Pivotal Software, Microsoft's VS Code editor is getting improved support for Java and Pivotal's Spring Boot framework in the form of new and enhanced extensions.

Xamarin Faces Challenge from Google's Flutter Mobile SDK

In the wake of a former Visual Studio dev lead's departure for Google's Flutter team, here's a look at some published comparisons of the young Flutter project with the more established Xamarin offering that comes with Visual Studio.

Visual Studio IDE Opens Up to More Programming Languages

Visual Studio developers who want to program in non-native languages can now write their own extensions to do so with new support (in preview) for the Language Server Protocol, catching up to existing VS Code functionality.

.NET Core: To Port or Not to Port?

Microsoft cautions that not all projects are good candidates for moving off .NET Framework to .NET Core, which is optimized for building highly scalable Web applications running on Windows, macOS or Linux.

UWP Community Toolkit Catches Up to Fall Creators Update SDK

With the help of volunteer coders, Microsoft shipped UWP Community Toolkit 2.1, adding features that more closely align the open source app-building kit with the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update SDK.

Visual Studio Dev Lead Leaves for Google's Flutter Team, with a Few Parting Shots

Tim Sneath, a former principal lead program manager for Visual Studio and 17-year Microsoft veteran, has joined Google to work on that company's Flutter mobile app development framework, leaving behind a few parting shots about Microsoft's missteps in the client space.

F# Now Targets .NET Core Projects in Visual Studio

Microsoft's F# functional programming language now lets Visual Studio coders target .NET Core and .NET Standard projects.

Microsoft Updates Java Debugger for VS Code

Microsoft updated the open source Java debugger for Visual Studio Code, adding support for Java 9 among other improvements.

VS Code Finally Gets Multi-Root Workspaces

Visual Studio Code development is marching on to its steady monthly release cadence, knocking off user feature requests one by one, with multi-root workspaces topping the new v1.18 iteration.

VS Code Goes All In on Python

The Visual Studio Code team hired the developer of the code editor's most popular Python extension, took over the project as its own and is hiring more Python coders to improve it.

Electron.NET Uses ASP.NET Core 2.0 for Cross-Platform Desktop Apps

Two Microsoft MVPs have collaborated on a project called Electron.NET that uses the open source ASP.NET Core 2.0 framework to create cross-platform desktop apps running on Windows, OSX and Linux.

What's Coming for Visual Studio Code

Microsoft published the roadmap for Visual Studio Code, giving developers a glimpse into upcoming features for the popular, open source, lightweight code editor.

Subscribe on YouTube