I have decided to install and test the new Visual Studio 2010 Beta1 and I would like to share this experience with you through a series of posts. Stayed tuned :-)
The new interface of visual studio 2010 is entirely developed with WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation). The layout interface was updated. The colors and the contrast seems special at the beginning but, in my opinion, it is really better once you are familiar with it.
You have now the ability to customize the homepage using WPF. Check this link for more information (http://blogs.msdn.com/vsxteam/archive/2009/05/20/visual-studio-2010-beta-1-start-page-customization.aspx)
According to the Microsoft website, here is what they are currently working on:
Enhanced User Experience
Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 delivers a modern, enhanced user experience that makes understanding the current context more natural.
- Clear UI Organization
- Reduced clutter and complexity
- Improved editor
- Better support for floating documents and windows
- Enhanced document targeting
- Focused animations for action feedback
Parallel Programming
Parallel programming is simplified, so both native- and managed-code developers can productively build innovative applications.
- IDE support for parallel programming
- Native C++ libraries that use lambda functions and align well with STL
- Parallel Extensions to the .NET Framework offers support for imperative data and task parallelism, declarative data parallelism, and more
- Resource management of the multicore hardware and task scheduling enabled by Concurrency Runtime
- Parallel debugging windows and profiling views
Democratizing Application Lifecycle Management
Visual Studio Team System 2010 delivers new capabilities for everyone on a project, including architects, developers, project managers and testers.
- Discover existing code assets with the new Architecture Explorer
- Design and share multiple diagram types, including use case, activity and sequence diagrams
- Tooling for better documentation of test scenarios and more thorough collection of test data
- Run tests impacted by a code change with the new Test Impact View
- Gated check-in, branch visualization and build workflow allow for enhanced version control
Inspiring Developer Delight
Visual Studio has made application development more productive, efficient and flexible for both developers and companies. Visual Studio 2010 continues this legacy.
- Contextual support helps developers better understand existing code – and write new code more efficiently
- First class C++ development experience that helps developers navigate and understand complex C++ source bases
- Build new Windows® 7 applications or upgrade existing applications
- Enable Office tools to make your solutions more flexible and productive for specific needs
Web Development
- A high-performance and standards-compliant JavaScript IntelliSense® engine
- "One Click Deployment" that quickly publishes files and configuration settings from development machines to the final deployed site
- Full support for Silverlight™ for cutting-edge, rich Internet applications
Cloud Development
With Windows Azure™ Tools for Visual Studio, it's easy for developers to build, debug and deploy services and applications for Microsoft's new cloud platform.
- C# and VB Project Templates for building Cloud Services
- Tools to change the Service Role configuration
- Integrated local development via Development Fabric and Development Storage services
- Debugging Cloud Service Roles running in the Development Fabric
- Building and packaging of Cloud Service Packages
- Browsing to the Azure Services Developer Portal
This is the end of this short first part. You can now jump to the part 2 and discover some new features of Visual Studio 2010…