Some of you may, or may not know, Microsoft announced the deprecation of the Azure Data Studio (ADS) on 06 February, with support ending next year on 28 February. For those of using ADS Microsoft recommends migrating to VSCode and using the mssql extension.
Honestly, I'm really concerned about this. I tried the mssql extension for VSCode (mssql going forwards) some time ago, and compared to ADS it was incredibly feature lacking. A lot of stuff I want to do as a DBA was completely missing, so I went straight back to ADS and didn't look back. I like ADS, and I've got good use out of it; especially as (as those who know me well) a Linux user at home, where I can't use SSMS.
Anyway, I thought "Ok, I'll give mssql another go, maybe it's come a long way since I tried last". Oh boy has it not; at least for someone like myself.
My first problem was that the extension was broke. A Google informed me that the only fix was to navigate to the extensions folder for mssql, and delete all the mssql extension installs and reinstall. Not ideal. Even after that the SQL Database Projects extension (which ships with mssql) refused to install/start, so I had to install the prior version (which seemed fine, but upgrading it borked it again). Yeah, that didn't get me off on the right foot, sorry Microsoft...
Anyway, onto functionality, first thing I did was go to add my Central Management Server (CMS); I can't. The feature isn't implemented yet, and in August 2024 it was actually unplanned. Great... Ok, I'll add a manual connection to one of the Sandbox servers, and go from there.
Great, now I'm connected, Let's navigate to the Sandbox database on teh server, and open a new query window. Now let's write a small query to see what intellisense is like... Intellisense? Hello? Oh... Selecting a database and pressing Ctrl+N doesn't connect you to the database you selected... Wonderful /headdesk
OK, connection changed. Intellisense seems "ok"; it's not SQL Prompt though, but I won't hold that against Microsoft. F5 Huh? Why am I being asked to save my query? Yeah... F5 isn't the default for running queries... At least that's only a keybinding issue...
Ok, let's do some other stuff I do more from a DBA side, let's check out what Agent has been up to... Wait, where's the menu? Wait, there's not one? Oh good...
This is likely the tip of the ice burg; I was just quickly experimenting, and things just didn't work as I expected a "replacement" for ADS to. I need to do a bigger dive, and then likely make a bunch of feature requests on mssql's GitHub for things that are missing, but if CMS isn't even planned, I do wonder what other fundamental stuff is/will be.
I realise this is a bit of a ranting post, but I wanted to rant; I don't want ADS to go and I don't understand why Microsoft is getting rid of it. It fulfils a different role to mssql, but if they are going to force users to migrate then parity needs to be there. The developers of mssql are going to have a long 12~ months ahead for make sure that they can achieve that.