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Visual Studio's Future: Live Help to 'AI-ify Your App'
Visual Studio guru Mads Kristensen provided a peek into the IDE's AI future, explaining how while in live-coding it will identify opportunities for your own app to use AI to your advantage.
Kristensen's foreshadowing comes with gravitas, as he is a principal product manager on the Visual Studio dev team, known for his helper extensions whose functionality often gets baked into the bits. He recently shared his inside knowledge at Microsoft headquarters in a developer presentation titled "Your Future is Bright with Visual Studio and AI," now available for on-demand viewing. His session was part of the Visual Studio Live! series of developer conferences, which is making its next stop next month in Orlando as part of the multi-conference Live! 360 event. Kristensen is going to keynote that show (more on that below).
Kristensen discussed how AI helps with naming things, generating commit messages, debugging and much more, but in looking ahead, one particularly interesting feature in the works is the ability for Visual Studio to "AI-ify" your app.
[Click on image for larger view.] 'AI-ify Your App' (with 3-armed woman via AI) (source: Visual Studio Live!).
"So when we're looking at where where do we want to be in the future when it comes to AI, one of them is how do we make it easy for you to take advantage of AI in your own apps," Kristensen said. "And you can imagine that this all happens at coding time -- you're writing, coding in Visual Studio and maybe Visual Studio can identify some patterns in what you're doing or the intent of your app, understand some things."
That, he said, leads to the IDE's AI pointing out an opportunity for a developer to improve an app.
"And the whole point is, if we can do that while we're coding, then it's kind of part of our inner loop. It's part of our workflow, right? It's not an afterthought; it's something we can be aware of while we're coding the app. We don't have to make the decision then and there necessarily, but we're made aware of it proactively. That's the key -- without being annoying.
"I mean let's be honest: We don't want any big flashing things or toast messages or yellow bars or anything like that, but some sort of mechanism to let us know that, 'Hey, there's an opportunity here to do whatever you're trying to do in a very cool way.' "
Mads Kristensen, principal product manager, Microsoft
"I mean let's be honest: We don't want any big flashing things or toast messages or yellow bars or anything like that, but some sort of mechanism to let us know that, 'hey there's an opportunity here to do whatever you're trying to do in a very cool way.' That's beneficial, right?"
Right. And other AI benefits help with compliance, finding issues with security, accessibility, privacy and so on while you're coding. Visual Studio can also help to optimize cost and efficiency, said Kristensen, who keeps devs apprised of Visual Studio features in the works on social media.
He's going to be doing more of the same at the big Live! 360 multi-conference event for developers and IT pros next month in Orlando, where he will deliver the keynote address, "Building Lovable Software for Millions of Users."
"Join Mads as he explores how Microsoft's Developer Division designs and delivers software that caters to the needs of IT professionals, DBAs, security specialists, data scientists, and developers worldwide. He'll share insights into the challenges and breakthroughs that have shaped some of Microsoft's most essential and beloved products, providing valuable lessons for all tech professionals," says the session description for the Live! 360 event, which is presented by the parent company of Visual Studio Magazine.
About the Author
David Ramel is an editor and writer at Converge 360.