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Windows Devs Get Cross-Platform Page, Issues Repo
Developers doing their coding on the Windows OS have received two new resource gifts from Microsoft: a new landing page for those using cross-platform technologies and a new GitHub repo with which to report issues to Windows engineering teams.
The new landing page targets developers using cross-platform tools for projects targeting non-Windows devices.
"Are you a developer using Windows, but working with cross-platform web, Node, React, Java, Kotlin, Python, Xamarin, Android Studio, etc.? And do you primarily deploy your sites, services, and systems to Linux-based cloud environments or Android devices?" Microsoft said in a July 28 blog post."
"If so, we're very excited to announce that we've just published a new landing-page to help you get your development environment setup and optimize your workflow when running Windows."
The new landing page features:
- Overview: workflow and performance tips, developer stories, popular tutorials, Mac to Windows guide and keyboard shortcuts
- Developer paths: for getting started with Python, Node.js, Android, C/C++, C#, Java on Azure, PowerShell and databases on WSL
- Tools and platforms: Windows Subsystem for Linux, Windows Terminal, Windows Package Manager, PowerToys, VS Code, Visual Studio, Azure and .NET
[Click on image for larger view.] Development Paths (source: Microsoft).
This simple first effort will be adapted according to developer feedback, Microsoft said, pointing to links on the page to provide that feedback about what developers would like to see added or changed.
Meanwhile, Microsoft also announced the WinDev GitHub repo for developers using Windows for creating projects for that OS or Linux, Android, IoT devices, servers, containers, or the cloud.
"We created this repo to enable developers who use Windows to submit & discuss issues directly to Windows engineering teams who don't already have a repo of their own, whether the issues you uncover are to do with using Windows itself, or running your code on Windows!" Microsoft said.
The repo says it's only accepting developer-oriented performance issues right now, including:
- Dev tools (e.g. compilers, linkers, etc.) running slower on Windows than expected
- Runtime platforms (e.g. node, .NET, Python) running slower on Windows than other platforms
- Your apps experiencing file IO/networking/process-creation related perf issues
- Etc.
There's a much longer list of technologies for which issues should be directed to the respective teams, ranging from Windows Terminal and WSL to PowerShell, WinForms, WinUI, ASP.NET Core and more.
[Click on image for larger view.] Out-of-Scope Issue Technologies (source: Microsoft).
Like the aforementioned landing page, this resource is also starting small.
"Important caveat: This is a new communications channel for our team and so we are starting small by only accepting developer-related performance issues at this time. As we learn more about how to best handle these issues, we aim to broaden the scope of this repo to include additional scenarios," Microsoft said.
About the Author
David Ramel is an editor and writer at Converge 360.