Visual Studio 2008
Visual studio 2008 with the codename of Orcas was released on 11 August 2008 along with .NET 3.5. The new features and functionality of these two astounded everyone active in the industry. Now they are launched and many developers are using these technologies. VS 2008 has some highlighted features that are described below.
VS 2008 is multi-targeted which means you can use VS 2008 with different versions of the .NET framework. You can choose either of the 2.0, 3.0, 3.5 and .NET Compact Framework versions for each project. By choosing any of these versions the IDE will try to match itself to the .NET framework by updating its compiler.
One of the other surprising features of VS 2008 is its improved HTML web design and the support for CSS (Cascade Style Sheet) which gives the ability of having more flexible design patterns. Split view editing is a great feature added to VS 2008 which allows us to see the Design view and HTML source of the design together in one view. The ability of using nested master pages is the other perfect feature for easier web design.
The VS 2008 has been widely welcomed by the developers who develop programs for the Windows platform. Also the Image Library has been improved and contains images and icons designed for Windows Vista.
Another interesting feature in VS 2008 is the more mature support for development of JavaScript and AJAX applications, because of the built in JavaScript Intellisense. VS 2008 has more powerful support for JavaScript debugging which results in easier debugging of AJAX applications.
.NET Framework 3.5 has presented a new language called LINQ which enables the developers to use a query-like language within the primary language syntax. By the help of assemblies we can simply use LINQ with SQL databases. This delivers a more simplified way for manipulating data in .NET applications. Besides, with the help of the new C# and VB compiler the experience of programming with these languages has been enhanced, thus the result is a cleaner and more concise code.
VS 2008 contains WPF project support for client use. There are basically four types of WPF projects:
- WinFX Windows Application
- WinFX Web Browser Application
- WinFX Custom Control Library
- WinFX Service Library
The VS 2008 debugger is also improved according to these new features:
- Support for distant debugging on Windows Vista.
- An easier way for debugging multi-threaded applications.
- Support for debugging LINQ programs.
- Support for debugging the .NET framework 3.5 BCL (base class library) by downloading BCL source code and the ability of using it during debugging.
- Support for debugging WCF.
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