Visual Studio 2008 Finally Ships -- Visual Studio Magazine

Desmond File

Visual Studio 2008 Finally Ships

It's been three years and a whole lot of betas and CTPs, but the next version of Microsoft's flagship Visual Studio IDE is finally here. As reported by RDN Senior Editor Kathleen Richards, Visual Studio 2008 became available for download to MSDN subscribers on Nov. 19.

Every version of Visual Studio, from the freely available Express edition to the enterprise-oriented Team System version, is addressed with the Visual Studio 2008 launch. VS08 includes numerous features to streamline development, including visual designers and wizards, and hooks to tap features of the .NET Framework previously inaccessible to developers.

Visual Studio 2008 also includes the next update to the .NET Framework (version 3.5), which delivers a host of compelling bits to .NET developers. Among the new features in .NET Framework 3.5 is Language Integrated Query (LINQ) for programmatic access to data stores, the ASP.NET AJAX toolkit and support for key Web 2.0 protocols.

Most important, Visual Studio 2008 finishes the work that .NET Framework 3.0 started a year ago. VS08 will allow developers to effectively tap the Windows Presentation, Workflow and Communication Foundations that are core to .NET 3.0, while also opening new avenues to AJAX, database and even Silverlight-based development.

Visual Studio 2008 is looking very much like a must-get upgrade for .NET development shops of every stripe. Do you agree? Let us know what features and capabilities you need most, and what issues or bugs concern you. E-mail me at [email protected].

Posted by Michael Desmond on 11/21/2007

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