Visual Studio.Net 2005
I visited a Toronto .Net User Group meeting that showcased VS.Net 2005 (beta2), and I must say that I am really excited for this product.
I am a Visual Basic/SQL/ASP developer, and from what I saw there are some really nice new features that Microsoft has added to this product. Mind you the demonstration was only 2.5 hours in length so it barely even scratched the surface, but I'll give some of what I thought were highlights.
Visual Basic:
1. Addition of a using statement. If you have ever worked in C# you know how valuable this can be as any item that is referenced with this statement is automatically created and destroyed when it is not needed any more (nice performance gains)
2. Code Snipits, while the speaker did not get into great detail with this subject, it was pretty cool. Basically it is lazy man's coding, but if you're writing 10000 lines of code they can be very helpful, it allows you to select some pre defined code blocks, then shows you where you have to enter you're own values, also you can create you're own snipits.
3. Error Helpers. If there is an error in you're code and you are not quite sure how to fix it, you can now click the error and it will give you suggestions on how to fix your error.
ASP:
1. You DO NOT NEED IIS TO BE INSTALLED TO DEVELOP A WEB APPLICATION. I put that in uppercase because I wanted to get the point across. Basically VS will find an acceptable port on your machine and allow you to view your developing app though it (i.e. localhost:1065/Myapp).
2. Disconnected Web Applications. This was really cool I thought. You do not have to be connected to run Web Apps any more, they can be built as an installing application. This type of app also uses a technology similar to Windows Update to detect when the user is connected to the internet or network that the app resides on, and it will check if an update is available.
3. I didn't see it myself but supposedly they have improved the way that the designer view interprets HTML and regular ASP, which means that there should be less of the "Designer View cannot render such and such code"
Team Services:
This is a new addition and most of us saw it coming, it's a tie in with SharePoint Services, where projects can be maintained, and monitored without asking the people involved to fill out progress reports all the time. I basically ties in the System Analysts, PM's, Developers, Testers, and even End-users, and allows the PM's to view reports on the projects. Now I didn't get to see this in action but I have seen SharePoint in action and I have worked with Reporting Services so I can imagine how valuable this will be. I do believe that it is an add-on, or it maybe a completely different suite.
Well that's about all that I took in from 2 and 1/2 hour presentation on the new Visual Studio, I suggest that if you want more info, or want to try out the Beta2 go to lab.msdn.microsoft.com/vs2005. Now I do believe you have to be an MSDN subscriber to download the beta2, but for 10$ I they will ship it out to you (I know Microsoft should be able to afford to ship this out for free). The only thing I suggest if you are interested is put this on a Virtual Machine as it is a beta and you need to install .Net Framework 2.0 which I believe has not had all the bugs hammered out of it, oh and a side note on the .Net Framework 2.0, I recently heard from Microsoft that the 2.0 Framework from SQL Server 2005 CTP is not compatible with the 2.0 Framework for Visual Studio 2005 (go figure) so yes if you have this installed you would need another VM to run SQL 2005.
I am a Visual Basic/SQL/ASP developer, and from what I saw there are some really nice new features that Microsoft has added to this product. Mind you the demonstration was only 2.5 hours in length so it barely even scratched the surface, but I'll give some of what I thought were highlights.
Visual Basic:
1. Addition of a using statement. If you have ever worked in C# you know how valuable this can be as any item that is referenced with this statement is automatically created and destroyed when it is not needed any more (nice performance gains)
2. Code Snipits, while the speaker did not get into great detail with this subject, it was pretty cool. Basically it is lazy man's coding, but if you're writing 10000 lines of code they can be very helpful, it allows you to select some pre defined code blocks, then shows you where you have to enter you're own values, also you can create you're own snipits.
3. Error Helpers. If there is an error in you're code and you are not quite sure how to fix it, you can now click the error and it will give you suggestions on how to fix your error.
ASP:
1. You DO NOT NEED IIS TO BE INSTALLED TO DEVELOP A WEB APPLICATION. I put that in uppercase because I wanted to get the point across. Basically VS will find an acceptable port on your machine and allow you to view your developing app though it (i.e. localhost:1065/Myapp).
2. Disconnected Web Applications. This was really cool I thought. You do not have to be connected to run Web Apps any more, they can be built as an installing application. This type of app also uses a technology similar to Windows Update to detect when the user is connected to the internet or network that the app resides on, and it will check if an update is available.
3. I didn't see it myself but supposedly they have improved the way that the designer view interprets HTML and regular ASP, which means that there should be less of the "Designer View cannot render such and such code"
Team Services:
This is a new addition and most of us saw it coming, it's a tie in with SharePoint Services, where projects can be maintained, and monitored without asking the people involved to fill out progress reports all the time. I basically ties in the System Analysts, PM's, Developers, Testers, and even End-users, and allows the PM's to view reports on the projects. Now I didn't get to see this in action but I have seen SharePoint in action and I have worked with Reporting Services so I can imagine how valuable this will be. I do believe that it is an add-on, or it maybe a completely different suite.
Well that's about all that I took in from 2 and 1/2 hour presentation on the new Visual Studio, I suggest that if you want more info, or want to try out the Beta2 go to lab.msdn.microsoft.com/vs2005. Now I do believe you have to be an MSDN subscriber to download the beta2, but for 10$ I they will ship it out to you (I know Microsoft should be able to afford to ship this out for free). The only thing I suggest if you are interested is put this on a Virtual Machine as it is a beta and you need to install .Net Framework 2.0 which I believe has not had all the bugs hammered out of it, oh and a side note on the .Net Framework 2.0, I recently heard from Microsoft that the 2.0 Framework from SQL Server 2005 CTP is not compatible with the 2.0 Framework for Visual Studio 2005 (go figure) so yes if you have this installed you would need another VM to run SQL 2005.
posted by davetank at
8:30 AM
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