Microsoft angered the .NET open source community by removing a key part of Hot Reload in the upcoming release of .NET 6, a feature that allows developers to modify source code while an app is running and immediately see the results, The Verge reported.

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It is a feature many had been looking forward to using in Visual Studio Code and across multiple platforms until Microsoft made a controversial last-minute decision to lock it to Visual Studio 2022 which is a paid product that's limited to Windows.

 

Sources at Microsoft, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the tech website that the last-minute change was made by Julia Liuson, the head of Microsoft's developer division and was a business-focused move.

 

Microsoft has now reversed the change following a backlash, and anger inside the company from many of Microsoft's own employees.

 

"We made a mistake in executing on our decision and took longer than expected to respond back to the community," said Scott Hunter, director of programme management for .NET.

 

Microsoft has now approved the community's pull request to re-enable this feature and it will be available in the final version of the .NET 6 SDK.

 

"We have taken steps to address the issue that some of our OSS community members have experienced," said a Microsoft spokesperson in a statement to The Verge.

 

"Hot Reload capability will be in the general availability build of the .NET 6 SDK available on November 8," the spokesperson added.

 

Microsoft's blog post doesn't address this controversial decision, though. Instead, it suggests it was simply a mistake to remove the code instead of simply disabling it, and not a business decision.