Get a FREE fully-working copy of Steganos Security Suite 7 (worth £49.99) when you sign up to the Practical PC Newsletter. Review: Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Pro - Part 2
Iain Laskey continues his overview of what's new in Microsoft's latest version of Visual Studio.
| Product | Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Pro - Part 2 |
|---|---|
| Company | Microsoft |
| Web | msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio |
| Price | Pro version £575. Upgrade £375. |
| We like | Solid toolset, real productivity improvements, edit/continue debugging |
| We don't like | No code profiling or source control, slightly suspect UK pricing |
| Rating | 9/10 |
| Requirements |
Visual Basic
Visual Basic has at long last got back what many VB6 developers have been after, Edit & Continue. This allows you to tinker with your code whilst debugging. You can step through some code, change a variable and then continue working. There was a huge uproar when this disappeared from Visual Basic .net but now it's back.
VB now conforms properly to the Common Language Specification making it far more easy to mix and match between VB, C#, C++ etc when coding. It is still possible to write non conformant code but the compiler will thrown up a warning if it comes across anything.
Another item being welcomed back is the Continue statement. New though is the IsNot statement which makes for tidier code. You also get support for generics (as does C#) which is another often requested feature.
One new feature I particularly liked is the 'My' feature which provides a short cut to a huge chunk of the .Net framework and its functionality including the run time environment and default instances of various commonly used objects.
Visual C#
As well as generics, C# has grown static classes which makes life a lot easier. Now you can access class members without having to instantiate the class itself. Ideal for small toolkit type functions.
A whole slew of changes to support refactoring are also included. Refactoring has been getting a lot of interest in recent years and now C# users can start to make greater use of it.
The new and improved class designer has meant a lot of existing C# wizards have gone but the new tool is good enough to ensure they won't be missed.
Like VB, C# now has the ability to Edit & Continue which is really good news and makes for much easier debugging.
Visual C++
C++ has a new syntax for CLR programming as well as improved support for managed code. Whilst there are no real Earth shattering changes, Microsoft have made a huge number of small but effective changes in almost all areas of the compiler and IDE improving usability, stability, security and productivity (and any other 'ity' things you can mention.
Crystal Reports
CR has been updated to support the new ClickOnce deployment system. It also has improved design time preview options. New users will appreciate a raft of new templates to help beginners get up to speed with using Crystal as quickly as possible. You can also modify the look of a report using CSS.
ASP.NET
The new environment fully support ASP.NET 2 and all its new objects and provides a robust and integrated web site development system. Existing Visual Studio .net 2002 or 2003 projects will need some upgrading to the new format though. You also get an improved code-behind model with more flexibility.
Conclusion
Visual Studio Pro 2005 has made the whole Visual Studio package a far more rounded tool. Lots of changes both large and small have all helped to make programmer's lives easier and added real productivity changes as well as adding support for 64bit and new Microsoft technologies. VB Programmers should see this as a must have upgrade, others who code day in day out should also consider the move. For the occasional coder there is less here of interest especially given the availability of free cut down versions. All in all though, a good solid upgrade from Microsoft that was worth the wait.
