If you are a developer who writes code for both macOS and Windows platforms, then you are going to love this. Microsoft has announced that it is bringing Visual Studio software to the Mac. It has already launched the Visual Studio For Mac Preview and it is now available for download. With this move Microsoft will bring ‘mobile-first, cloud-first’ development tool for C# and .NET programing languages. The release of Visual Studio on the Mac will eliminate the need for developers to own a Windows powered machine or install or use Boot Camp to run Windows on the Mac just to use this particular development tool. The company says that if you are someone who uses Visual Studio on Windows, you will feel right at home when using its Mac counterpart.
The Visual Studio for macOS packs the same features and design as the Windows version. The IDE is using the same technologies as it does on Windows, for example its project system takes advantage of MSBuild while the IntelliSense and Refactoring use Roslyn Complier Platform. Just like on Windows the source editor supports the TextMate bundles. For iOS and Android the tool is using the same designers for Xamarin.iOS and Xamarin.Android. Microsoft notes that right now not all Visual Studio project types are supported by the Mac version. However those that are supported will allow team members working on macOS and Windows machines to share projects across platforms without the need of migration or conversion of any sort.
Visual Studio for Mac offers server development via .NET Core with Azure integration. It supports primary workloads for native iOS, Mac and Android development through Xamarin. With powerful features like these you will be able to develop native mobile apps as well as cloud based server back-ends. In addition to C# the macOS tool also supports the F# language, same as the Windows version.
This is not the first time Microsoft has released a development tool for the Mac. It had also released the Visual Studio Code for the Mac, which is a lightweight standalone source editor.
If you are a Mac using developer who uses Windows just for the sake of Visual Studio, then the Visual Studio for Mac is a must have development tool for you. You can download it from here. (Source/Thanks Jawad)
Update: Microsoft has pulled the blog post detailing Visual Studio for Mac and the preview is not available for download, which is contrary to what we reported earlier. This is because Microsoft prematurely published the article. The preview will now be available around November 16th, at Connect() event that is scheduled to kick off on 16th.
