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Comment by nickysielicki | Hacker News Reader

How many people do you think will actually use this?

I just really cannot ever see mass use of azure and visual studio in the web ecosystem. The people writing nodejs code are all using vim and unix, and you're asking them to give up their workflow and change operating systems. I want to be able to poke around in bash. (edited back in)

Sure, some people new to web programming might go this route. But the next big web framework certainly will be on unix first. MS is now in this perpetual state of trying to keep up, and I just can't imagine why anyone serious about web programming wouldn't be on *nix.

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Based on a totally-not-statistically-significant-survey our team conducted, we are seeing that yes - many node devs are deploying to Linux, but developing on Windows. We support this scenario through remote debugging to any OS. Azure not required :)

This appears to be consistent with npm's data as well (see this infographic - % devs accessing npmjs.org http://blog.modulus.io/growth-of-npm-infographic).

We also try very hard to make sure that NTVS works well with people's existing tools and packages - so if you run into an issue, please let us know (or better yet, make a PR!)

You're only seeing part of the picture. There are a lot of Windows shops out there globally -- not just enterprise-oriented .Net consultants, but all kinds of companies from small web agencies to specialized software vendors.

I've worked with some of these people on the web agency end of the spectrum. They're good at what they do, but they're absolutely not interested or specialized in anything sysadmin-related. For them, Unix is a hairy old beast and Microsoft is the company whose solutions are imperfect but accessible, and that has allowed them to concentrate on their job for the past 20 years.

As Microsoft adds new technologies to their palette, these users will pick it up. They'd never do it on their own as long as it involves steps like "just spin up a virtual Linux box on AWS"...

On HN, it's easy to start assuming that everyone speaks Bash as a second language, but that's very far from the truth.

The people writing nodejs code are all using vim and unix

No they aren't, that's just your perception because you are surrounded by those that are.

AFAIK Windows Node developers are still a minority, but that doesn't mean they're not a sizable group of people. A lot of code is written in corporate environments in C# and Visual Studio - adding Node to that mix is a sensible bet on Microsoft's part.

Yeah I was being hyperbolic, but my point still stands. The LARGE majority of developers have accepted unix as their overlord, and that poses a huge problem to microsoft as they're a second thought. They're forced to try to fit new frameworks into their ecosystem, rather than on unix where developers expect it to run.

I see it ultimately as damage control. With the overwhelming majority of developers on unix, you're not going to see microsoft hang out in the server market for very long. I think they'll hang onto the office crowd, but nothing on the backend.

This, of course, is just the opinion of a 20 year old unix nerd, who became one because his father is a microsoft fanboy. I rebelled in my teenage years by infuriating my father and installing linux. I still think I raise some valid points.

What evidence do you have that the majority of developers are on Unix? Just web devs or all devs?

I doubt that it's true in either case. IT departments around the world employ programmers to make all sorts of business apps including internet/intranet web apps. Even some very small companies have custom apps to do business and the vast majority of businesses are using Windows.

For the most part, npm packages work fine on both Windows and nix platforms. However, it is pretty clear that most are developed on, and have fewest problems with, nix. I believe that is due to the massive popularity of Macs with the JavaScript-focused web dev crowd.

There seems to be a common thread on HN of people assuming that trendy startups are the entirety of the software industry.

And this is a great development - it means for future enterprise projects, Node will become a more realistic choice, because it means that using Node on a project doesn't require orgs to build entirely new infrastructure to support * nix deployments or dev environments.

What makes you think that Microsoft can't have a part of the Unix server slice, either? Have you seen e.g. this:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dotnet/archive/2015/02/03/coreclr-is...

(specifically the part that says "We will be adding Linux and Mac implementations of platform-specific components over the next few months.")

Or the part where ASP.NET vNext runs on Mono as the officially supported platform?

http://graemechristie.github.io/graemechristie/blog/2014/05/...

Yeah, I don't use vim, but Emacs, so that generalization is totally off.

Completely agree with you , But even all node.js dev's are user of unix/vim/emacs (I am emacs user though) this does not mean Microsoft should not develop tools for its users.Microsoft try to attract developer to its own platform , which is OK , at least I think it is ok. Every Company doing same thing.

I wasn't ever trying to say this is a bad effort or anything. I think it's a relatively good thing. I just don't see azure as sustainable.

Why not? Azure is platform agnostic at this point, it isn't just a home for .NET code.

The same reason I use *nix on the desktop: I like to be able to poke around on everything.

It's really scary for someone new, but power users like environments where everything is modifiable and hate GUIs.

I like being able to configure nginx a certain way. I like being able to get into a psql shell and play around with my data. I don't want to just give someone a git repository and magically press some buttons in their UI and have it work, because when you inevitably realize you want to do something special, you're stuck.

That approach doesn't seem to have hurt Heroku. And you know you can spin up a Linux VM in Azure, right?

MS has been pushing more and more for all of their tools to be scriptable through powershell, to give you just that. Getting stuck is harder and harder these days. Hell, powershell has features I'd love unix shells to copy, like being able to import libraries and use their classes and functions like any other shell command.

Not to be at all rude or confrontational, but I think there's a lot of folks in the open-source communities that have no idea how drastically their numbers are DWARFED by the number of devs working in enterprise computing. And those enterprise devs often have no use at all for "poking around", for better or worse: their priorities are other, entirely.

Different strokes for different folks, but there's a lot more folks stroking the corporate way.

Indeed. Somewhat related, I read about this big car manufacturer that's started building cars with the steering wheel on the left side.

Silly, right?

I mean, who would want to sit on the left side of the car when they're driving? Nobody I know ever has. I mean yeah, you see them on the road every once in a while, but it must just be people new to driving who haven't learned better.

Everybody drives on the left side of the road (at least everywhere I'm aware of), so it just naturally follows that you need to have the wheel on the right. Switching things up would force everybody to completely change up their driving workflow.

Lots of .Net companies dabble in Node.js and other alternatives to .Net and any competent developer is capable of creating sites on any operating system with a little bit of time and patience to learn.

I've been doing .Net development for over 5 years and my newest site is based in Node.js hosted on AWS. I am currently using Web Storm, which is great, but this plugin is definitely something I'll check out and is probably created for people like me: Someone who is a .Net developer, already has VS, but has a need for Node.js code.

I think your original comment mentioned that you'd want console access. While I was grabbing a screenshot, it looks like you edited your comment and removed that, but I think that was a valid concern.

There's a web based console that's sadly not that well known. Here's a screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/Lrw7lL1.png

Here's a video showing more of the features (it's from 2013, it looks better and more has been added since then, but it shows the idea): http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/azure-friday/exploring-the-su...

Jon, this is something which should really be better promoted. I follow most of the interesting .net peeps on twitter & have listened to Scott H's pod + Herding Code for years.

This is the first time I've seen this, which is a shame, because it solves a lot of my misgivings with Azure..

Wow, that's fantastic. One of the things I love about Google's cloud is the easy SSH-in-browser. If Azure has this I'd love to use it. I hope it's just not tied to that terrible new portal. It's just so slow (in rendering, esp. over RDP) and clunky and laggy and confusing. The old one is far better (and would be all I want if they'd just move all the services I never use to the bottom so I don't have to scroll).

node.js has been used heavily inside Microsoft for quite some time so even if they created this for internal use only it wouldn't be a waste of time. Microsoft employee here.

And I think you vastly underestimate how popular Visual Studio is among enterprise developers - they're doing web development as well.

I don't have access to anyone inside of Microsoft, So I bring this up here, please tell Microsoft to develop official ssh client (With server it would be even better, but for now client I think would be enough) , I am tired of using putty for SSH'ing into my virtual machine. (or at least they can fork putty and make it official).Even in git plugin in visual studio they developed there is no SSH support.

Just use cmder or conemu; then you'll have a great console and ssh :)

Thank you , last question , are they reliable ? ( I am installing them right now , but I think as you mention them , you can answer this question better ) Because I use SSH in my work and research all the time , I am kind of tired of putty and its bug's.

It just uses msysgit's ssh implementation.

Check out MobaXterm [0], there's a free version but I ponied up for the Pro edition after just a week. I use it daily and its X support is really bloody good. I run PyCharm (and other stuff) on a CentOS machine but the GUI is on my Windows desktop.

[0]: http://mobaxterm.mobatek.net/

It's super cool for people wanting to do node on Windows. I used the beta while doing a small side project at my last job, and they worked well for that project.

My issue isn't necessarily azure and VS. It's the state of node on Windows. It's a second class citizen compared to the versions for posix compliant OSes. There are things that just don't work on Windows without installing VS, which is undesirable for deployment, and that's assuming they work even after VS is installed.

I'd rather spin up a local Ubuntu VM and write code in WebStorm, and that's what I do. I get debugger support, test runners, code completion, etc. Plus, I can then just deploy to cheaper VPS providers (DigitalOcean, Vultr, etc).

Fwiw we have remote debugging to any OS, so you can remote debug your app regardless of whether or not it's running on azure. We are striving to streamline this experience as much as possible, so any feedback or ideas you have on how to mitigate some of windows issues you've run into would be super helpful. :-)

The two major issues I have run into with doing node on Windows are likely out of your control. First is the file path length limitation, which conflicts with the nesting of npm dependencies. Second is dealing with any packages that depend on node-gyp for compilation. It shouldn't require an entire IDE to be installed in production just to build your dependencies that need node-gyp compilation. Not to mention that the process is problematic even in dev if you're not lucky enough to have installed the exact expected dependencies. I found it easier (and more portable) to just use a VM running some *nix flavor (Ubuntu for me) and deploy to a similar environment.

I actually use it.

I'm not serious about web development though, I just do it for my job.

I also use Python Tools for Visual Studio, but that is a different story.

I almost considered doing my python development full-time in a windows vm because PTVS looks amazing.

From my personal experience, if I'm not on Windows I use PyCharm for my IDE, but when I am, and I have VS installed, Python Tools for Visual Studio is really what I consider, Microsoft's hidden secret for VS. It really is a powerful tool, it would not surprise me if NTVS is right up in the same level of quality. Really great tools. Otherwise I try to go for JetBrains.

I do not know what you are talking about but the majority of companies that I have been working in the last decade use Microsoft Windows as operating system. They have absolutely no way they want to support *nix and Windows, so the development is done on Microsoft ecosystem. The next big web framework... again you look to be really close minded in your reality. All the new stuff is cross platform... even the next Asp.Net framework can run on every system. Stop the Microsoft hates and start opening your eyes...

Bascially most .NET developers and other developers using Windows likes this. Why complain that a tool exist on a platform you don't use? Please ask MS for a Linux version of Visual Studio if you want to and think that would help Linux users.

Ultimately, MS' business in web development is tied to selling an IDE and Azure. Both have had to change to incorporate the tools people are using (JavaScript), not just the tools MS control (C#/.NET). I agree, the "Embrace, extend and extinguish" philosophy has apparently been replaced with "Embrace and hope to stay relevant".

I think they are doing a good job at handling that change. I don't personally want to be constrained to doing everything within an IDE, and I'd rather use the tools directly than have them abstracted to look like native MS tools, but that's their business model, and it is slick and works for a lot of people.

I can't speak for other teams, but re: NTVS... we definitely dont want to force abstractions upon you. For instance, with the npm integration, we provide UI where it makes sense (exploring/managing your packages, searching for packages), but you can drop into the cmd line or .npm command in the interactive window anytime you please. Think of it as semantic zoom - allowing you the flexibility to traverse the levels of abstraction when it makes sense. Are we 100% there yet? No. But I consider that to be the ideal experience, and we're definitely trending closer to that vision.

Thoughts? I'm especially curious to hear how you think we can improve the existing experience so that it caters better to your workflow. What are some of the abstractions that get in your way?

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