Visual Studio 2015, Team Foundation Server 2015 Updates Near RTW -- Visual Studio Magazine

Visual Studio 2015, Team Foundation Server 2015 Updates Near RTW

Vast list of improvements and changes across the board for the Microsoft developer tools platforms as the products get closer to final Web release: support for iOS 9 and Android Marshmallow in Tools for Apache Cordova, and a number of improvements specific to Visual C#, Visual C++and Node.js Tools for VS.

By Michael Domingo
11/05/2015

The Visual Studio Teams have put out a number of fit-and-finish improvements to the latest release candidates for Visual Studio 2015 and Team Foundation Server 2015. These releases appear to be the last ones before it's considered "gold code," or finished code.

Visual Studio 2015 was released back in July 20. As is the case with any software, development is never finished, and the team has been working on sweeping improvements, many of which will be in the final release to Web. Here's a summary of changes in this Update 1 Release Candidate:

Tools for Apache Cordova: iOS 9 and Android 6 "Marshmallow" support; Azure AD authenticationplug-in; source docs at Github; sample and doc hub now centralized at http://taco.visualstudio.com.
Tools for Universal Windows Apps: Updates to .NET Native, XAML designer, manifest designer, store packaging, and debugger.
Visual C++: Ability to use Edit and Continue when debugging Windows Store C++ projects.
IDE: Added Go To Implementation shortcut allows navigation to an implementation through right-click menu; added Quick Action command for refactoring get methods into properties; fixed bugs in formatting, casting, WinForms integration, and Solution Explorer searches.
Visual C#: Re-added C# Interactive Window and C# REPL window; released scripting APIs for building and running C# as a script; released csi.exe tool for running C# script files from a command prompt.
TypeScript: VS 2015 now supports version a number of features from versions 1.6 and 1.7, as well as ECMAscript versions 6 and 7 within TypeScript.
Node.js Tools for VS: Supports Node.js 4.x and npm 3.x; supports code snippets; improved IntelliSense capabilities.

The team emphasized in the release notes that there is known licensing issue with the Visual Studio Android Emulator and Microsoft Test Manager working with VS 2015: "we recommend that you avoid installing Update 1 RC on a computer where either of those products is needed."

Team Foundation Server 2015 Update 1 Release Candidate 2 has a whole host of improvements, all of which are listed on these release notes. Of significance is how TFS now is able to support swithcing between Git repositories and Team Foundation Version Control when working on projects. TFS 2015 U1 RC2 has also improved Kanban boards so that data from them can be queried and charted, and a closer integration with SonarQube for project build analysis.

The team notes that even though it's a second release candidate, this version should be considered a "go live" version.

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