I missed this "debacle" as well, the HN story on it in October only had 59 comments, of which about half a dozen were actually about the topic itself. Not much outrage here apparently.
> ... if any other language platform was withholding features like a debugger, ...
Except "withholding a debugger" is not the same as "a complex new feature that builds on top of the existing debugger will only be released on one platform to begin with" is it? Features in beta releases aren't guaranteed to in the final release, even if some users really liked it.
Visual Studio already had a lot of code relating to editing program state when the debugger is paused after hitting a breakpoint. Seems plausible that Hot Reload in VS would be able to leverage some of this code to reduce the amount of work required to build, test and deliver the feature on that platform. It would also mean getting feedback and issues more relevant to the core of the feature, because the integration and UX is an evolution of code that's been there pretty much since VS was first released.
> ... if any other language platform was withholding features like a debugger, ...
Except "withholding a debugger" is not the same as "a complex new feature that builds on top of the existing debugger will only be released on one platform to begin with" is it? Features in beta releases aren't guaranteed to in the final release, even if some users really liked it.
Visual Studio already had a lot of code relating to editing program state when the debugger is paused after hitting a breakpoint. Seems plausible that Hot Reload in VS would be able to leverage some of this code to reduce the amount of work required to build, test and deliver the feature on that platform. It would also mean getting feedback and issues more relevant to the core of the feature, because the integration and UX is an evolution of code that's been there pretty much since VS was first released.