Ask HN: What share of your daily dev tools/libraries are from Microsoft?

4 points·dataviz1000··3 comments

I'm falling into a silo using Github, TypeScript, VSCode, Github Copilot, Playwright, and several other open source Microsoft controlled libraries. Probably the only big thing not Microsoft is my MacBook Pro.

Everything is free, however, I'm becoming a little worried my dependency on Microsoft comes with some hidden costs.

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Github, TypeScript, VSCode, Playwright, NPM.

I wouldn't say I have a dependency, I could excise all of this from my work pretty easily. But I certainly agree it feels problematic, especially with how easily most of this could be adversely impacted by a round of layoffs or other cost-cutting initiatives. Another thing that mildly concerns me is the "walls going up" as Microsoft feels encroached-upon by competing services like with Cursor and VSCode extensions.

So you are worried that you will be assimilated by the Microsoft borg. Valid concern. But all that free stuff is hard to stay away from!

github because the project is open source (would get close to gh with proprietary information!), we mirror there to run build and tests on their money.

ts because we made the mistake of assuming it would be good a while ago and regret it every single day. but its still the least worse if you have to ship js to the browser.

that's about it.

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