Next CTP of Visual Studio Update 2 Released -- Visual Studio Magazine

Onward and UpwardKeith Ward, Editor in Chief, Visual Studio Magazine

Next CTP of Visual Studio Update 2 Released

Three weeks ago, Microsoft released the third Community Technology Preview (CTP) of Visual Studio 2012 Update 2. It was called the "February Edition." So now that we're in March, that must mean it's time for the "March Edition."

That version -- the fourth CTP of Update 2 -- dropped yesterday. One big difference between this version and the previous is that it's a "go live" iteration, so you can put it on production servers. But, as Charles Sterling of the Visual Studio ALM team mentioned, there may still be fixes, changes or additions coming, so proceed accordingly. Since it's go-live, it will be supported by Microsoft.

There's an extensive list of upgrades on Sterling's blog entry, but one in particular stands out: a new preview of the LightSwitch HTML client. LightSwitch is meant for quick development of line-of-business applications, requiring less development skill but still providing enough power and flexibility to create robust programs.

The two key goals of the latest version of LightSwitch, as spelled out in this blog, are enabling cross-platform development through the use of Web standards HTML5 and JavaScript, and new integration with SharePoint. Given SharePoint's crucial role in many businesses, this is a positive step for developers.

Microsoft Technical Fellow Brian Harry explained on his blog that applying the Agile methodology of delivering these small updates at quick intervals, and getting more user feedback as a result, has improved the product: "In that process we found 3 or 4 significant bugs and fixed them for this CTP," he wrote.

This is allegedly the last CTP of Update 2; the next release should be the final, official version. You can get it here.

Posted by Keith Ward on 03/05/2013

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