For those like me who haven’t really considered Microsoft’s solutions for web development may want to take another look.

Microsoft’s consistent updates to tools like Visual Studio and VS Code as well as bringing these tools, and more, to other platforms reinforces their new commitment to cross-platform development.

VS Code

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Several months ago I decided to give VS Code a try in place of my staple code editor I had used for years. I was pleasantly surprised by the out-of-the-box features Microsoft incorporated such as Git, Extension Library, IntelliSense, and Debugging that also fully supports Node.js. Of course, similar features are available in other editors, but many require additional extensions to be installed.

It was clear recently just how quickly VS Code has become a popular choice among developers, when earlier this month Microsoft pushed an update that unintentionally created a DDoS attack against npm. npm stated that the amount of traffic they received from VS Code users whose upgrade attempted to access a non-existent package was about the same number of requests they typically receive from the country of India.

In addition to Windows, VS Code is also available for both Mac and Linux — all completely free.

Visual Studio

Photo Credit: Microsoft Press Tools

Are you interested in making cross-platform hybrid mobile apps using web languages? Visual Studio, the full blown IDE by Microsoft, includes Tools for Apache Cordova which is a great solution for web developers looking to maximize their productivity through code reuse.

Let’s say I built a great new web app for a client, I could leverage Cordova to also build a mobile app for both iOS and Android reusing the majority of my code all through Visual Studio. This is a great all-inclusive solution for web developers, and the best part is Visual Studio is free for small teams.

At the Connect() event this month, Microsoft announced that it will bring the Visual Studio IDE to Mac. Not all of the features available in the Windows version are present in the beta preview of Visual Studio for Mac, but hopefully there will be more to come in 2017.

Microsoft Azure

Photo Credit: Microsoft Press Tools

Microsoft’s cloud platform Azure has gained a lot of traction with both enterprise and small businesses. This is simply because it is a great solution developers can implement for clients who need the flexibility and features that it offers. Integrated cloud services are becoming more popular due to the scalability they offer and rapid deployment as needed.

Visual Studio Team Services through Azure allows developers to use Git and offers developmental collaboration for your projects. It also allows you to create private project repositories at no cost for small teams. This is especially great as a free alternative, and it is also fully integrated into the Visual Studio IDE.

Windows Subsystem for Linux

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With the Windows 10 Anniversary Update this year came a great new feature for developers, the Windows Subsystem for Linux. This provides native Ubuntu Bash allowing you to run Linux command-line tools. Despite running in a “sandboxed” environment, you can still easily access your Windows file system to test, modify, or create.

As a diehard Linux fan this has filled a void that Windows has always left me with. Having native Bash has been great for my workflow as I do not have to boot into Linux just to test something. Being able to run SSH, VIM, GIT, and GREP, to name a few, natively is a great perk and a timesaver.

Microsoft is Bouncing Back

In my opinion, Microsoft is on a clear path to win over developers, and position itself to be the all inclusive development solution. They have finally started to embrace cross-platform development thanks in part to new leadership, and developers will only reap the benefits. This is exciting news fellow developers, and worth another look.