Visual Studio 2008: RAD Gets RADer

Visual Studio 2008 is all about making it easier for developers and development teams to create software for the latest and greatest platforms with technologies such as .NET Language Integrated Query (LINQ), ASP.NET AJAX, and the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) designer, to name just a few. In this brief article I will highlight just a few of the code editing and designer improvements that are new to Visual Studio 2008.

LINQ and IntelliSense

Integrating query syntax into Visual Basic and Visual C# enables functionality such as statement completion and IntelliSense when working with data queries. The approach for querying data with LINQ is the same whether you are accessing an in-memory list, XML data, a SQL database or any combination of these together. In addition to the design-time assistance provided by statement completion, smart compile auto correction (that squiggle under syntax errors) and IntelliSense, LINQ enables compile-time validation of queries so that you catch potential bugs before your code is executed.

LINQ’s expressive style enables a cleaner code base which is ultimately easier to understand and maintain.

Working with JavaScript

Visual Studio 2008 includes IntelliSense support for JavaScript, which will improve the ASP.NET AJAX development experience. IntelliSense greatly improves the discoverability of variables, objects, and their methods without having to context switch by ALT-TAB’ing to some form of documentation. Speaking of context switch, a simple but neat new feature that pertains to any IntelliSense dropdown is IntelliSense Transparency Mode. In the past, developers had to escape out of IntelliSense to see the code under the dropdown. Visual Studio 2008 lets you make the dropdown semi-transparent by holding the Ctrl key.

JavaScript debugging is sure to be a popular feature with Web developers and is available in Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition, which is free. The JavaScript debugger is fully loaded with the debugging features that developers have come to expect of Visual Studio. You need not upgrade your existing applications to Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 to take advantage of the debugger, or indeed any of the new Web designer and features. Multi-targeting allows you to open existing projects that target version 2.0 or 3.0 of the .NET Framework in Visual Studio 2008 so that you can take advantage of the new design and code editing capabilities without have to target a new framework version.

Web Designer

Visual Studio 2008 uses the same Web designer that ships with the Microsoft Expression products. The result is a snappier Web development experience and a swag of new designer features. The same multi-targeting capability applies to the new Web designer capabilities.

Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition now supports split-view editing allowing simultaneous display of HTML source and the design view. Changes made in one view are immediately displayed in the other.

Working with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is now a whole lot easier with the addition of CSS Style Manager, CSS properties windows, and CSS Source View IntelliSense. These features reduce the effort required to understand and manage your project’s CSS formatting rules.

Other Improvements Worth Checking Out

Client developers should check out the new WPF designer and project support. Both Windows Forms and WPF application types can now take advantage of ASP.NET Application Services (Membership, Roles, Profile) for roaming smart client user data. Developing solutions for Microsoft Office is much richer and now includes the ability to integrate with the Ribbon. Practitioners of agile software development methodologies and distributed teams will be pleased to discover that Continuous Integration is now built into Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server.

You can find more information about the many improvements and features in Visual Studio 2008 by visiting the MSDN Visual Studio Developer Center: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio.

Jonathan Wells

By: Jonathan Wells

Jonathan is currently a product manager in Microsoft’s Developer Division and focuses on Visual Studio 2008. During his seven years at Microsoft, Jonathan has served as a Software Design Engineer / Test (C# team), .NET Compact Framework product manager, and as an Architect Evangelist.

jonathan.wells@microsoft.com

Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2

This beta includes a Go-Live license so that you can start taking advantage of Visual Studio 2008’s new features today. With mulit-targeting you can use Visual Studio 2008’s new designer and code editing features with projects that target .NET Framework version 2.0 and 3.0; today!