Is Developer Console going to be deprecated?
Update from the June in the year 2020. At TrailheaDX this year Salesforce announced the Code Builder pilot - Introducing Salesforce Code Builder. Combine that with the Salesforce Dev Podcast Episode 37: Code Builder with Claire Bianchi.
Josh: [...]Does this mean you’re going to get rid of dev console or you’re going to remove the links?[...]
Claire: Yeah, I mean, we, we strive to give you the tools you need to get your work done, not to take away the tools, you’re already doing your job, right. I think we we want to unify those, and I’m not full disclosure, Dev console, and you’ve probably already noticed, isn’t gonna get a facelift. We’re not working on it. We haven’t worked on it. We’re working on code builder. We’re working on our extensions to Visual Studio code. And we’re going to try to make them consistent. Yeah. So that one day you’re going to go, why would I use a dev console. Great builder gives me everything I need and more. And what’s even better about that is I’m able to collaborate with my team, which I cannot do from dev console.
There are expanded details in the podcast, but the gist is that dev console will likely hang around it it's current form for some time, but it won't be getting any updates as the focus is on Code Builder.
The best current official source for information on the future of the Developer Console would be Nathan Totten (@ntotten). The last official thing I saw was in The Future of Salesforce IDEs blog post.
I don’t have a roadmap to share today, but I do want to assure you that this is an area we care deeply about and are investing in.
DISCLAIMER / SAFE HARBOR / FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENT / LEGALESE
The following does not constitute something official from Salesforce yet, so don't come back to me if somehow the developer console is still the only fully integrated web-based IDE for Salesforce in 10 years.
Unofficially, you can turn to twitter:
@ntotten @ccoenraets Any plans to add to the DevConsole support for #LWC? I checked in Spring19 org and I needed to use VScode to create them. Thanks! Roy Gilad
Unfortunately, DevConsole will not get LWC. Building a modern dev experience for LWC is simply not possible in DevConsole. However, we are working on a replacement tool that supports LWC (and everything else) that will be much nicer. Details coming later this year. Nathan Totten
Another good one:
Don't forget to let us know what you want to see in the next version of "Dev Console" by opening feature requests on Github: https://github.com/forcedotcom/devconsole/issues/new?template=feature_request.md …
https://twitter.com/ntotten/status/1073611195301748742
Getting warmer:
Tooling API info will be documented soon (I think they are releasing all that on the 17th). Regarding DevConsole, we will NOT be supporting LWC in DevConsole. We are currently working on a replacement to DevConsole that will fully support LWC (and existing metadata/code).
https://twitter.com/ntotten/status/1073237378591023105
The one thing I can say from that... Visit https://github.com/forcedotcom/web-tools/issues and register what you would want to see in a future version of the Dev Console.
LWC is meant to be used in a "source of truth" model that includes a repository. This is because the unit tests are not uploaded/stored in Salesforce, so the entire LWC needs to be offline somewhere or you'd lose some of the files. The Developer Console is still supported, and has not been deprecated in any official channel that I know of. Until/unless it is announced in release notes and/or another official channel, you can presume that the Developer Console will be viable for the foreseeable future.
There's no official mention about Developer Console being deprecated. And I wouldn't think that it's going to be deprecated anytime sooner.
While it may not be supported for LWC specifically but it still has its place. It still proves to be a handy tool for quite a few things. And that you can always use it not only for editing Apex, VF, Lighting Aura Components, etc. but also utilize one of a very important tools for query optimization, i.e., Query Plan Tool, which is as of now available only through Developer Console.