VS Code, the text editor, is a trojan horse.

Microsoft is selling you into the IDE, in small portions. This is similar to the IBM approach with JAVA last decade(s?).

You install a "text editor" for simple things, like code completion. Before you realize you don't even know which compiler you are using or where it came from. You just press F5 and look at convenient break points. And somehow it only runs right on Azure :) the last one is a joke (for now?)

As a language popularity grows, it approaches the Java curve. Just like nobody who uses `npm` like (or know) maven, nobody using VS Code know about the old java IDEs, and how they become todays Java IDEs. Or how the React monolith is the same as the Java Monolith.

I guess people mixing up java and javascript in the 90s... just thad more, long term vision?

Which IDE? If you mean Visual Studio, that's a Windows only product and it's really only good for Windows specific development like C# and MSVC. If you do C# or C++ development on Windows or XBox then you're likely already using Visual Studio and the community edition is a free product for individual use or open source products.

If you mean some future IDE that MS is working on that they plan to evolve VS Code into, I don't see MS trying to sell macOS or Linux users a proprietary dev environment or toolchain. It's certainly possible but your post doesn't provide any justification for that position.

Visual Studio for macOS (and Linux) exists, it was previously named Xamarin, and before that MonoDevelop.

Sure, just like Visual Studio Code exists for macOS and Linux. My specific argument was Microsoft is unlikely to release a proprietary IDE for macOS or Linux. Visual Studio for macOS is free and Microsoft open sourced Xamarin and Monodevelop [1] when they acquired it back in 2016.

[1] https://github.com/mono/monodevelop