Microsoft reinstates Hot Reload tool after huge open-source backlash

Microsoft has caved in to the pressure from the open source community and reversed its decision to yank a key feature from the upcoming .NET 6 release..

Microsoft wrongly rubbed the developers by quietly removing the Hot Reload feature from .NET 6, which reportedly allows developers to tweak source code while an app is running and observe the effects of the change in real-time.

The feature was one of the highlights of the open source .NET 6 platform. No wonder then Microsoft’s sudden decision to restrict the feature to Visual Studio 2022, a Windows-only paid product for the most part, forced the developers to ditch their laptops and grab pitchforks instead.

“....we’ve decided that starting with the upcoming .NET 6 GA release, we will enable Hot Reload functionality only through Visual Studio 2022 so we can focus on providing the best experiences to the most users,” wrote Dmitry Lyalin, Principal Program Manager .NET in charge of the Hot Reload feature, last week, announcing the change that led to the furor.

Ear to the ground

The Verge has learnt from anonymous Microsoft sources that the last-minute change, pinned down as a business-focused decision, was made by Julia Liuson, the head of Microsoft’s developer division. 

Microsoft probably didn’t foresee the backlash that would result from yanking a key open source developer-friendly feature from an open source framework, and restricting it to a freemium integrated development environment (IDE). 

“First and foremost, we want to apologize. We made a mistake in executing on our decision and took longer than expected to respond back to the community. We have approved the pull request to re-enable this code path and it will be in the GA build of the .NET 6 SDK,” announced Scott Hunter, Director Program Management, .NET. 

Hunter tries his best to explain Microsoft’s now-reversed decision, though admitting their mistake in executing the change.

“With the runway getting short for the .NET 6 release and Visual Studio 2022, we chose to focus on bringing Hot Reload to VS2022 first…. In our effort to scope, we inadvertently ended up deleting the source code instead of just not invoking that code path,” explains Hunter announcing the feature’s reinstatement.

Via The Verge

source https://www.techradar.com/news/microsoft-reinstates-hot-reload-tool-after-huge-open-source-backlash/