[lostintangent]

Hey All! I’m a PM on the Visual Studio Online team (as well as Live Share and IntelliCode), and we’re extremely excited to have more developers try out the product. Our goal is to dramatically reduce the cost of setup/onboarding, enable better team/classroom collaboration, and further support remote development. We believe that having on-demand, cloud-powered dev environments, that are accessible from VS Code and the web, provides a huge step towards achieving that.

Let us know if you have any questions/comments/feedback, since we’re very keen to begin working with the broader developer community, and learning how we can continue to improve. Otherwise, check out the service (https://aka.ms/vso), and then let us know what you think (https://GitHub.com/microsoftdocs/vsonline).

[ebg13]

> the Visual Studio Online team...VS Code...

So this is NOT Visual Studio but rather VSCode? Do you have insight into why Microsoft keeps making misleading product names? Would it be so horrible to name it VSCode Online instead of Visual Studio Online?

> Let us know if you have any questions

The website says "Use the programming languages and frameworks of your choice". Will that include building and debugging C++ Win32 MFC applications?

[gameswithgo]

This is from the company that came up with .NET to describe an intermediate bytecode and runtime.

Then later made a new thing called .NET Core which was the same as .NET Framework but more multi platform. Which was confusing so they came up with .NET Standard which was an interface describing compatibility between the other two .NETs

They have their top people working on the .NET jit and compiler, and the VS Code editor. None left for naming conventions.

[greggyb]

My favorite is their cloud platform, Azure, named after the color of a clear blue sky.

[golergka]

Personally, I low how they used the name C# for two completely different languages (https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/ricom/2009/10/05/my-history...).

[greggyb]

Also, C# can be read as C++++.

    C ++
      ++

[ygra]

Admittedly, most will never have heard of the older one.

[glenneroo]

Not to be confused with their upcoming Kinect Azure: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/kinect-dk/

[jagannathtech]

Haha this is funny.

[voxic11]

And that is all before you get to the frameworks. The latest "ASP" framework is called "ASP.NET Core" which succeeded "ASP.NET 4" and confusingly is available for both ".NET Framework" and ".NET Core".

[smhinsey]

The cherry on top is what they plan on calling the next major release. You guessed it! .NET 6.

[ygra]

.NET 5, actually.

[lostintangent]

While we released the public preview of the VS Code and web based clients, we also released a private preview of the VS client, which is actually fully optimized to support C#/C++ development. If you’re interested in giving it a try, sign up and we’ll get in touch with you soon!

https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/services/visual-studio-on...

[Havoc]

>So this is NOT Visual Studio but rather VSCode?

Well I just tried it and it's aimed at the feel of VSCode.

>Microsoft keeps making misleading product names

What's with the hostility?

[TheRealDunkirk]

> What's with the hostility?

Trying to work in this world, and keep up with what I'm supposed to be using for the platform and application in question. As programmers, we expect some level of complexity, but when Microsoft's lead tech evangelist feels the need to make multiple posts to explain the situation with the product lines, it might have gotten a little out of hand.

[jmkni]

Looks like Firefox isn't supported, is that on the roadmap?

[lostintangent]

Yep! This is high-pri on our roadmap. You can track progress on this GitHub issue, while we try to iterate rapidly during the public preview: https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/vsonline/issues/34.

[joecot]

Is there documentation somewhere for the self-hosted environment option, which according to the product landing page and pricing page is no cost? I'm guessing the flow there is to use VSCode through the online site, but give ssh credentials to one of your servers that's running the Remote SSH VSCode environment. But once I go to Create an Environment, there's no option for a self-hosted one.

[lostintangent]

Yep! Check out this doc and let us know if you have any questions/feedback: https://aka.ms/vso-docs/vscode/self-hosted.

[joecot]

OK, I got this working for my Desktop VSCode environment and that works great. But I'm guessing this wasn't tested in combination with the SSH Remote extension?

I can register my local VSCode just fine. When I connect to a remote ssh connection, and try to register that environment, I get a prompt telling me "Failed to register local environment: Install the Azure Account extension". When I look up that extension, I can install it in the SSH environment, but I get the same error still.

[joecot]

Gotcha. I'll admit since there weren't any instructions on doing it in the online admin, and in the docs it's not listed as a subpoint, I got disheartened when I reached the docs and missed it being underneath the instructions for Cloud-hosted. I wouldn't have expected a backwards flow for the self-hosted option, but that's doable. It might be more user friendly for the article to have the headings "Create an environment (Cloud-hosted)" and "Create an environment (Self-hosted)" in the "In this article" menu on the side, or for the "Create an Environment" section to tree both on that side-menu, so it's not missed.

[aphistic]

I looked at that page and I just wanted to clarify something for myself. Does this mean you can't do a headless server since you need VS Code and some plugins? I like the idea and it would definitely be a strong argument to go back to VS Code but I was hoping I could just run some kind of server on a terminal-only VM.

[glances]

From this on the github page: https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/vsonline/issues/41

"Presently, running the "Register" command via a full instance of VS Code is the only supported flow, but the scenario you described of hosting a server without a GUI is on the product roadmap."

[aphistic]

Oh, great! Thank you!

[lullibrulli]

Thanks! So if I understand correctly I still need an azure account for self hosting, although nothing will be billed?

[lostintangent]

Correct. Though we’d love to hear feedback on this experience.

[lullibrulli]

I'm personally not a huge fan of this, since I can't see the (as in: my) benefit of this. I don't have an azure account yet (this is where the benefit for MS is I guess ;) ). I would love to just register my selfhosted environment without any hassles. Maybe this would even bring more people to register their selfhosted environment, which could bring more people to buy a hosted environment. Could potentially even benefit MS to lower the initial hurdle for new users.

[XzAeRosho]

Any plans to support Firefox?

[lostintangent]

Yep! This is a high-priority, and you can keep track of progress on this GitHub issue: https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/vsonline/issues/34.

[Yizahi]

I wonder why do you prioritize support of googlenet browser and leave Firefox for later, while google is a main competitor of Microsoft?

[solarkraft]

The standard version of VS Code is built in Electron, which runs on Chrome.

[trogdor3000]

Because the new Edge browser is Chrome for all intents and purposes

[Havoc]

Excited about this.

>Let us know if you have any questions/comments/feedback

1) Shortcut keys. I hit some shortcut during my hello world testing that didn't have the expected effect (because browser). Given how keyboard heavy developing is are there any plans on unifying this more somehow - VS / VSC / VSO?

2) I gather this is still free, but I assume this will be running off azure credits later?

3) The machines seemed a little heavy spec'd for me. Powerful is nice & a big draw card for cloud. But for my personal use case (casual python) I can see the sweet spot being lower.

4) Please fix the permission request wordings on first launch. Very awkwardly phrased & still not entirely sure what it was asking. It was asking for maintaining some mystery permissions when I'm not online or some such thing?

5) Will GPU instances be available?

Thanks

[lostintangent]

Yes to #1 and #2.

For #3, we’ll be adding a “Basic” SKU soon, that includes 2 cores and 4 GB RAM. Would that be sufficient for your use cases? You can track the progress of this enhancement here: https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/vsonline/issues/54.

#4: Thanks for the feedback! I’ll look into improving that text this week.

#5: Yep! You can track the progress of this enhancement here: https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/vsonline/issues/192.

[Someone1234]

Is the iPad's Safari browser considered a "first class citizen" from a testing/breakage perspective? And on a related note, do you have/know what the minimum requirements will look like? For example, could a low powered ARM-based Chromebook utilize it?

[lostintangent]

Safari on iPad is a critical scenario for us, however, it isn’t currently “officially” supported. Yet! Stay tuned to this GitHub issue, where we’ll provide updates on this very soon: https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/vsonline/issues/33.

Regarding requirements, you could absolutely run the web editor from a Chromebook! Being able to utilize low-powered devices, while using real-world dev tools, is something we’re excited to enable with this service.

[msoad]

Why this doesn't work with Github login? Why all this Azure/Microsoft login is required?

This could be an immediate hit if I could click on a button in Github to open that repo in it with the environment all setup.

[lostintangent]

Thanks for the feedback! We definitely want to make onboarding to a GitHub repo as simple as possible. This is something we’ll be looking to gather feedback on from the community, so stay tuned as we iterate rapidly in the coming months.

[wayneftw]

I would like to add my voice to this issue.

I never had anything but problems with my Microsoft and Azure accounts because of confusing UX. If I have to deal with live.microsoft.com I won’t use it. But, if you let me login with GitHub I might try it out. I don’t want to link my GitHub account. I want that to be the primary account used to access VS Live.

I’m guessing that won’t happen though since you’ll want everyone to be ready to use Azure.

[gmaster1440]

Looks like the default VS Online dotnet sdk is set to LTS[1] which breaks my ASP.NET Core 3.0 project in an interesting way. The initial startup Oryx build succeeds[2] but the Omnisharp dotnet restore command fails[3].

[1] In ~/.bashrc: PATH=$PATH:/opt/oryx:/opt/nodejs/lts/bin:/opt/dotnet/sdks/lts

[2] ``` Source directory : /home/vsonline/workspace

Using .NET Core SDK Version: 3.0.100

Restoring packages...

Welcome to .NET Core 3.0! ```

[3] ``` /opt/dotnet/sdks/2.1.802/sdk/2.1.802/Sdks/Microsoft.NET.Sdk/targets/Microsoft.NET.TargetFrameworkInference.targets(137,5): error NETSDK1045: The current .NET SDK does not support targeting .NET Core 3.0. Either target .NET Core 2.1 or lower, or use a version of the .NET SDK that supports .NET Core 3.0 ```

[charles_f]

Simple observation that VSO used to be the name of what is today Azure Devops, which is at its 3rd rename (vsts, ado).

Reusing the name of a past product for a new product that is not entirely related is pretty confusing.

[lostintangent]

Interestingly enough, many people thought the original VSO was an online web IDE. And so in this case, we decided that it made sense to re-purpose the brand for a product that met many people’s expectations. Visual Studio Online: This time, it’s for real!

[teddyuk]

"VSO" is a pretty poor search experience:

https://www.google.com/search?q=vso

vs code doesn't appear anywhere, however you would have totally owned this:

https://www.google.com/?q=vs+code+online

[solarkraft]

Except it's not really Visual Studio, but Visual Studio Code.

[Dayshine]

Hi, I'm the author of a niche language server extension (https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=tboby.cw...).

Is there any guidance on what I would need to do to support VSO? Do I need to do anything?

I'm a bit concerned that it sounds like I have to pay in order to write/test environments. Do you not think this will be a barrier to adoption?

[lostintangent]

Your extension should “just work”. And yes, we have a self-hosted environment solution that you can use to test out your extension in the web, and it’s entirely free: https://aka.ms/vso-docs/vscode/self-hosted.

[chuxel]

If you run into trouble, we've also expanded the Remote Development extension guide in VS Code documentation to cover Visual Studio Online as well: https://aka.ms/vso-docs/developing-extensions

[tumetab1]

A clean online, and shared, environment seems like a better way to do PR reviews with the author than doing a Live Share.

Does the platform support that? Or wants to?

What I would like to stop a comment thread and jump to online-video-session to review some code. Live Share works but requires a stable environment by one of the parties which might be troublesome with some code.

[lostintangent]

The same team that builds Visual Studio Online also builds Live Share, and so we care very deeply about collaboration. That said, you can spin up a new environment for a PR and then start a Live Share session from there. This allows others on the team to jump in, and leave comments, entirely asynchronously, and without requiring a specific “host” to be online.

We have a lot more to do in order to make this scenario truly shine, but we’re very excited about the possibilities moving forward. I’d love to hear more about your specific thoughts on PR reviews, and what kind of workflow your team would find compelling.

[tumetab1]

I think that matches perfectly what I have imagined. async and sync work support for PR reviews.

a) People not currently working on a repo (don't have a local build environment setup) and do tweaks and suggest improvements (e.g. add a unit test to prove make a bug clear) in a async way.

b) A tech lead/senior developer can request the author to join a live session to go explain the whole PR has a bad approach or misses a base guideline on the repo. Not sure on this case how a summary of review session should be added (maybe the PR should have a log of review sessions done).

c) A teach lead takes the PR has an opportunity to ask the whole team to join a review so that he can point out a recurring issues on the repo or to just align ideas on code quality.

[lincolnq]

I'm very excited about this! I recently switched to desktop + iPad, and I can't currently code at all on the iPad because all the apps I tried suck. I'm hoping that VS Online will solve my problem.

[lostintangent]

This is absolutely a problem we hope to solve :) We’ll be adding “official” support for Safari on iPad soon, so stay tuned, and please don’t hesitate to reach out to let us know any feedback/questions you may have.

https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/vsonline/issues/33

[anilgulecha]

Is this open source? If not, are there any plans to open it up?

[Someone1234]

edit: This post was wrong. See reply below.

Original post read: They linked directly to the GitHub repo in the post with a LICENSE in it.

[judge2020]

That's the MicrosoftDocs org, there's no source code in that repo.

[Someone1234]

Opps. You're right. I don't know then.

[Const-me]

> Let us know if you have any questions/comments/feedback

OK. What you wrote on that web site, "run, and debug your applications from any device", reads like a false advertisement.

I do CAD/CAM/CAE, for that I need a physical GPU. I do embedded, for that I need custom physical hardware, running specific build of Linux. I do multimedia, for that I need a physical GPU with all their hardware codecs. I do GPGPU, same thing.

Maybe you should specify which types of applications are actually supported?

[lostintangent]

That’s totally fair. Over time, our goal is to expand the platforms and application types we support (we’re currently focused on web/APIs), because we believe value props remain the same, regardless if you’re doing desktop, mobile, data science, etc.

That said, we can definitely make sure to be clearer about where we’re at in our journey towards enabling this promise more broadly. Apologies for the confusion!

In the meantime, we also allow registering your own machines with the service, since we’ll never be able to provide all of the customized environments that devs need. With this “self-hosted environment”, you can benefit from the remote tooling experience (including the web editor), with your own compute. I’d love to hear if this would be helpful for you and your specific workloads.

[Const-me]

> allow registering your own machines with the service

Hmm, for embedded that would be ARM Linux. Even if you'll support the platform, would be slow.

> I’d love to hear if this would be helpful for you and your specific workloads.

Probably not. I don't like latency, you probably don't have an Azure DC in or near western Balkans.

Even ignoring latency, I don't like clouds in general. Unreliable, often overpriced, aggressive marketing.

[ArtWomb]

Love it! Linux backend is cool too ;)

Is there a stand-alone that I can host and run in a cloud vm myself?

[sosuke]

If you have a moment could you send me an email? Mine is in my profile. I'd love to try out this product but there is something that has prevented me from using it. I'm hoping you might be able to get me to the right help I need.

[lostintangent]

Just emailed you!