[chc]

Xbox was revolutionary. Online multiplayer on a console had been tried many times before — as far back as the Sega Genesis and as recently as the Xbox's rival, Playstation 2 — and failed miserably every time. Microsoft was the first company to make it work, and their current implementation is still probably the best.

And I don't know any developer who would dismiss Visual Studio. In most regards, it's a best-of-breed IDE.

[vetinari]

> And I don't know any developer who would dismiss Visual Studio.

You are new around here, right? Make yourself comfortable and you will know droves of them in no time. ;)

[chc]

I would be fascinated to hear from them. I know lots of developers don't use Visual Studio for some reason or another (I'm one of them), but I've never heard anyone call Visual Studio a poor IDE.

[kabdib]

I edit in Emacs, then build and debug in VS (when I can). It's a good combo and less clumsy than it sounds.

[mryall]

Java IDEs like Eclipse and IntelliJ made VS look like a toy until very recent editions. No built-in refactoring support, limited configurability for keyboard shortcuts, minimal integration with external build tools and SCM systems -- it was horrible going back to C# development from Java when I was doing both in 2005-2006.

[rapind]

Not sure where eclipse is at now but I have less than fond memories of that beast. I did most of my java coding in ultraedit so I could actually listen to mp3s at the same time back then.

Not that I had a lot of love for VS either, but I don't remember it ever running as heavy as eclipse.

[wglb]

I used VS for the better part of my 10-year stint at a BFE, and it served rather well. However, i would be reluctant to go back to it having spent serious quality time with emacs.

The plus about it is that it has all the stuff that you need to build the final payload/program/assembly/whatever. My discomfort with it these days would be that it requires too much mouse work.

(And best-of-breed sounds very BFE, or something that Gartner would say, hardly the people I would look to to know what is going on).

[chc]

Heh, I don't know a better word for it. That's how people who are enthusiastic about IDEs tend to talk. I would hesitate to call it "awesome" or anything like that, but among IDEs, it's well thought-of.