Visual Studio
Reddit take
AI summary of the Reddit excerpts below — not a quote
Visual Studio remains a powerhouse for Windows developers due to its industry-leading debugger and comprehensive out-of-the-box toolchain. However, user sentiment is currently strained by performance issues, including lag and slow updates, alongside frustrations with an increasingly intrusive IntelliSense system. While recent UI updates have modernized the interface and reclaimed screen space, long-time users are divided on the shift toward a VS Code-style settings experience.
Pros
- Superior debugging experience that many users feel is unmatched by competitors.
- Comprehensive built-in toolchain and memory profiler that 'just works' without manual setup.
- Recent UI improvements like tightened line margins and enhanced status bars for file encoding and selection stats.
- Effective 'out of the box' experience for enterprise environments and subscription-based teams.
Cons
- Performance issues including lag, slow installation/update times, and occasional UI glitches like forms turning black.
- IntelliSense can be intrusive, offering 'childish' or unhelpful suggestions that get in the way of coding.
- Lack of native support for Git worktrees.
- Reported poor experience when handling TypeScript and JavaScript compared to other editors.
- Platform-locked to Windows, with no native Linux version available.
Caveats
- The parser can be overly permissive, sometimes accepting files with syntax errors or broken GUIDs.
- New features like 'implicit usings' are polarizing and may require manual disabling in project files.
- The transition to a VS Code-style settings menu is difficult for some veteran users to parse.
Best for
- Windows-based developers who require a robust, integrated debugging and profiling environment.
- Users who prefer a complete IDE that requires minimal extension management to function.
Avoid if
- You are working on a Linux-based system.
- Your primary focus is TypeScript or JavaScript development.
- You are highly sensitive to IDE performance lag or intrusive AI-assisted coding features.
This summary uses balanced time weighting with about a 6-month half-life. The evidence is older, with a median source age of approximately 305 days, which may not reflect the very latest software patches in this fast-changing category.
Sentiment
26 positive (23%) · 12 mixed (11%) · 76 negative (67%)
Trust + time weighted score: -51% · raw score -44%
What redditors said (10 of 114)
Parent context: You need to add a custom template. It really doesn’t feel worth it for the sake of a few key presses occassionally. Or just ignore them. 🤷♂️ Reply: You need a custom template for this? What idiotic design!
Every time I create a new C# file, it adds these using directives to the top of the file: using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Text; How can I stop it from adding these? I have implicit usings enabled so the first two are unnecessary, and the third just isn't used in the code we write.
I personally dislike the settings screen changes to move to a VSCODE style. I understand it comes with the modern features that VSCODE has, but I find it very difficult to parse the settings when I look at it.
I regularly report issues with VS. The process has gotten worse recently with AI's "does this describe your problem" searches.
It is over engineered, most of the time the bugs and problems are intermittent.
For me bugs like this is why I absolutely hate Visual Studio. All these intermittent bugs, you open a file and a blank tab appears, you double click a property and the whole property window dissapears, you open an ssis script task and all your code is gone!
in my opnion vs and .net ecosystem has been behind the competition, its only because you are stuck in the Microsoft bubble that you dont see it
I don't like the user interface of Visual Studio, it really shows its age. In my experience Visual Studio also never runs smooth, startup is slow, opening solutions takes a lot of time, the time to start debugging takes a lot of time, stopping your application takes time. Visual Studio has the same bugs as it had 10 years ago
The UX of the problem report page is a disaster. I am mainly a backend guy and I could make a better one :( * I could not see a button to submit the problem - there was only "Search". * "Search" button was not enabled and the page did not indicate any problem. * When I finally completed the missing fields and searched for the problem - it took me a moment do decode what I was looking at.
Ye I feel the same, it feels outdated and bloated nowadays.
Compare
Visual Studio vs RunableVisual Studio vs Claude CodeVisual Studio vs Visual Studio Code
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