The Wait for Visual Studio 2008 is Over!
On Monday, Nov. 19, Microsoft announced that Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 were released to manufacturing (RTM). With more than 250 new features,Visual Studio 2008 includes significant enhancements in every edition, including Visual Studio Express and Visual Studio Team System. Developers of all levels – from hobbyists to enterprise development teams – now have a consistent, secure and reliable solution for developing applications for the latest platforms: the Web, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, the 2007 Office system, and beyond.
You can read the whitepaper from from here
As usual, express editions for developers are free at http://www.microsoft.com/express/
Some of the noted features of new Visual Studio 2008 are:
- Enhanced IDE (Settings migration, community features, window management, class designer)
- Projects and Solutions (Web applicaiton, AJAX development, Project designer, deployment)
- Editing (New design view and CSS Design Tools, IntelliSense for JavaScript and ASP.NET AJAX, WPF Designer)
- Data
- LINQ
- Client Application Services
- Reporting (Report Wizard, Expression Editor, Report Viewer, PDF Compression)
- MSBuild (Target a specific .NET framework, Multi processor capability, Enhanced logging, Item definition, Assembly locaiton and name changing)
- etc.
7 responses to “The Wait for Visual Studio 2008 is Over!”
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I read that it is codenamed Orcas. Did I spell it correctly?
As an MVP, you must have got the source code under the shared-source license program? If yes, did you try out the new features?
Yes, “Orcas” was the code name for Visual Studio 2008.
Since, Cyber Law in India is not powerful enough to protect Mirosoft’s Source Shared-Source Licensing program is not available for India. Some other countries also face the same situation.
But for reference Source Code for .NET framework is available 🙂 I bloged in earlier here : http://blog.ninethsense.com/dotnet/net-framework-source-code-for-viewing/
What about the cost when it gets launched? Any idea?
It is already launched and is available for purchase.
The full Professional Edition of Visual Studio 2008 sells for about $730. The Standard Edition is priced at about $270
Some of these products are not very popular for their backward compatibility. What do you think about this one? Will the old stuff open well once you upgrade to this one?
What is the relevance of backword compatibility? For me, it is like opening an Excel Spreadsheet with Adobe Photoshop 😛
Well, they offer compatibility packsfor popular products. Eg: Microsoft Office 2007 compatibility pack for older versions of Microsoft Office products
Microsoft products are well known for forward compatibility.
Well, another information regarding Visual Studio is – Visual Studio 2008 Express editions are free for download.
Main purpose for these editions are learning and development of hobby projects. We cannot use these for complex projects since it is not equipped with production tools.
Express Products available are:
Visual Basic 2008
Visual C# 2008
Visual C++ 2008
Visual Web Developer 2008 (for ASP.NET development)
SQL Server 2005
Other Visual Studio Express 2005 products are no longer available for download.
Here is the link: http://www.microsoft.com/express/product/default.aspx