Azure Data Studio Retired, Replaced By VS Code Plugin
You have to ask the question: Is Microsoft doing this to improve the experience for developers?
This reminds me of the deprecation of Visual Studio for Mac. It was “retired” in favor of VS Code last year. Funny, the word “retired” makes the app sound incapable; past its prime, ready for the newer and better solution to take over. In the case of ADS this is not true. For example, it's missing basic functionality like editing row data, and the co-mingled keyboard shortcuts are a disaster. In the case of Visual Studio for Mac, no developer in their right mind would choose a browser-based pile of anemic plugins you control from the status bar and a pop-up menu over a native IDE. After lots of promises and close to a year of waiting VS Code is still an objectively terrible replacement. VS Code appears to be an all-consuming black hole. Stay far away from its event horizon.
So the answer to my initial question appears to be no, they are doing these things to help themselves with regard to maintenance, resourcing, and ultimately cost.
