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Microsoft Visual Studio Logo

Once upon a time, when Windows was habitation to the vast majority of applications, and most of them were written in C++ or Visual Basic, Microsoft's Visual Studio toolset was male monarch. Most developers had an MSDN subscription and used a diversity of Microsoft tools. The Visual Studio IDE (integrated evolution surround) became one of the about powerful ever built. Now that far more attempt is being invested in not-Windows applications than previously, far more evolution is done using a wide-varieties of IDEs — many of them based on the open up-source Eclipse organization. Microsoft has now best-selling and embraced this fact in a big way, by making Eclipse a full-fledged pick for those developing for Microsoft's Azure services or using Visual Studio's team development features.

Microsoft's Eclipse-based tools

Microsoft Visual Studio started out as a desktop IDE but has extended over the years into a complete team environment for software developmentMicrosoft has been shipping a number of Eclipse-based tools already, including an Azure Toolkit for Eclipse and a Coffee SDK for Azure. Its Team Explorer Everywhere already allows Eclipse developers to access Visual Studio's Team Services from within Eclipse — build, test, and source code control, for case. What's new is Microsoft has now integrated its offering with Codeenvy's tools — which are in turn built on the new Eclipse Che platform. Using Codenvy's Visual Studio Team Services extension, developers using Microsoft'due south tools will be able to create Codenvy workspaces. Microsoft is also adding a pre-configured Codenvy VM to its Azure offerings.

Microsoft and the Eclipse Foundation

Microsoft has worked with the Eclipse Foundation for a long time, simply has now officially joined every bit a Solutions member — timed to coincide with EclipseCon. Fifty-fifty though this won't hateful that Microsoft is embracing the Eclipse IDE every bit its principal development environment, information technology is very much in line with Microsoft's newish "embrace and extend" arroyo to other popular tools and environments. Ironically, perhaps, at the aforementioned time Google has moved to distance itself from Eclipse, by catastrophe support for its Android evolution plug-in for Eclipse in favor of its own Android Studio offering.

As part of joining the Eclipse Foundation, Microsoft is open up sourcing its Squad Explorer Everywhere plugin for Eclipse through Github, as well as Azure IoT back up through Kura, and Azure Coffee WebApp support through the Azure Toolkit for Eclipse.

What this means for developers

Microsoft doesn't seem to be bankroll away from its commitment to the Visual Studio IDE — it only shipped R-language extensions for the Visual Studio IDE recently, for example — but is instead reaching out to allow those using the Eclipse IDE to be full members of Microsoft-centric development efforts. This is perhaps best typified by the championship of one of the sessions Microsoft is giving at EclipseCon, "Integrating Different IDEs with a Mutual Set of Developer Services."