It's odd that people read my comment and assume I'm binary about IDEs. I'm a pragmatist, and I say use the tool that works.
I tell people they shouldn't be dependent on IDEs to write software because that gives them choice and control over their career. That doesn't mean I'm saying people should neverever use and IDE. In your situation I would have studied everything that microsoft puts out and learn to own VisualStudio. If I have to use a tool, I learn to hack the hell out of it and own it so that I'm not screwed when I need to use it.
I suggest you bite the bullet and put in the time to get good at it. I would start here:
I think that's a Microsoft site. There's plenty of other courses online that will teach you, and they should be a tax write-off since that's professional development.
There is ample evidence that the rising market for IDE's is producing cruddier software, and I think your position is a fair one for anyone with any experience in the industry to hold, given that there is ample history of the subject to support the fact that the first-line of attack for any platform vendor is in the developer tools realm. No system worth its salt ever shipped without some form of development environment - and the slicker, and easier to use, the better. Anyone can pick up Visual Studio these days and bang a few things together to make their computer operate; whats sad is that its not just a built-in feature of the OS, though, and is instead guided as a product by marketing people whose desire really is to gain impressions, capture mindsets, and lock people into their brand. Your average editor doesn't do much of that; your average IDE does a hell of a lot of it. Yours is therefore a valid argument, in my opinion ..
I tell people they shouldn't be dependent on IDEs to write software because that gives them choice and control over their career. That doesn't mean I'm saying people should never ever use and IDE. In your situation I would have studied everything that microsoft puts out and learn to own VisualStudio. If I have to use a tool, I learn to hack the hell out of it and own it so that I'm not screwed when I need to use it.
I suggest you bite the bullet and put in the time to get good at it. I would start here:
http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/product-training/visu...
I think that's a Microsoft site. There's plenty of other courses online that will teach you, and they should be a tax write-off since that's professional development.