This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by LUIS VASQUEZ
To the Visual Studio team,
As a developer with decades of experience — from the days of Turbo Pascal and MS-DOS to modern .NET Framework environments — I’ve seen tools evolve, and I’ve seen them forget something essential: the ability to speak to those who are just starting.
Visual Studio is a powerful platform. That’s not in question. But its current presentation — through conferences, documentation, and community engagement — seems increasingly tailored to experts, architects, and enterprise teams. What happened to the space for the developer who opens Visual Studio for the first time and seeks understanding, not optimization?
Two paths must coexist
The expert path: DevOps, GitHub Copilot, AI, distributed architectures. These are valuable and necessary.
The beginner’s path: clarity, pedagogy, and respect for gradual learning. Equally essential.
Borland made this mistake in its golden years: it abandoned the user who made it great. Embarcadero Technologies continues to make it. Microsoft has the opportunity — and the responsibility — not to repeat it.
Visual Studio should not be a trial by fire. It should be a tool that adapts to the developer’s pace, not the other way around. That begins with restoring a pedagogical focus in events, documentation, and strategy.
What we propose
Dedicated conferences for new developers who want to understand Visual Studio from the ground up.
Documentation that doesn’t assume prior enterprise experience.
Examples that respect diverse technical backgrounds — from Excel users to low-level programmers.
This is not a critique. It’s an invitation. To recover the spirit that made Visual Studio great: being a tool in service of the developer, not a showcase of complexity.
Sincerely, Luis J. Vásquez R. Developer, technical architect, advocate for craftsmanship
This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by LUIS VASQUEZ