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!)

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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/...

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.

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.

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.

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...

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

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

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

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).

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 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.

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?