Visual Studio 2008 Released to Manufacturing

Published: November 28, 2007

by Alex Woodie

Microsoft last week announced the release to manufacturing (RTM) of Visual Studio 2008, a new version of its flagship integrated development environment (IDE) that, along with Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008, is a key component of Microsoft's product strategy for the next three years.

Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework version 3.5 both went RTM, enabling MSDN subscribers to download them off the Web. The software should be available to non-MSDN developers in a matter of weeks, providing a nice little stocking stuffer for your favorite application developer.

S. "Soma" Somasegar, corporate vice president, of the Developer Division at Microsoft, says several new features in the new development tools excited him the most, including:

• Support for Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Windows Workflow Foundation (WF), and Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), which will finally let developers take advantage of the new APIs available for Windows Vista.
• Building workflow-enabled Web services for more inter-connected applications. Developers will write business logic workflow with WF, then expose the messaging using WCF.
• Simultaneous support for .NET Framework versions 2.0, 3.0, or 3.5. Previously, a developer had to pick just one version of the Framework.
• Language Integrated Query (LINQ), which simplifies how programmers access disparate data sources with their applications.
• Office Business Applications (OBA), enabling developers to more easily integrate their applications into components of the popular productivity suite, such as Outlook.
• Easier JavaScript development, through the addition of things like IntelliSense, syntax checking, and debugging.
• Code annotations in the Team Foundation Server (TFS) edition, enabling teams of developers to more easily see what other members have done within a particular piece of source code.
• Other TFS enhancements, such as the capability to automatically generate a build whenever a programmer checks code into the source control server, and to automatically check the state of the build and to prevent further check-ins from other programmers until the build is healthy.

There are several editions of the IDE, including the low-end Express Edition, Standard Edition, Professional Edition, and the Team Foundation Server, which is used by groups of developers.

Microsoft is enticing beginners, students, and hobbyists to get involved with programming by releasing several goodies for use with the Express Edition. For example, it's created the Beginner Developer Learning Center, where programmers can get free lessons and watch videos about programming. There's also the "Coding4Fun Developer Toolkit," which is used for building peer-to-peer chat, video, and speech-enabled applications that are "cool" and "fun," according to Somasegar.

Since the release of the Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions, there have been more than 17 million downloads of Express Edition products, Somasegar notes. With such an army of budding developers being schooled in the ways of Microsoft, the fun (and profit) should last quite a long time for the world's largest software company.

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