It has been 10 years since the arrival of Visual Studio. Some of the salient benefits of Visual Studio 2008 are productivity, support for the latest platforms and team development. Visual Studio 2008 delivers improved language and data features that help developers in rapidly creating modern software.
For example, Visual Studio 2008 provides innovative new technologies, such as the Language Integrated Query (LINQ), that make it easier for individual programmers to build solutions that analyze and act on information. Visual Studio 2008 also offers developers with new tools that speed creation of connected applications on the latest platforms, including the Web, Windows Vista, Office 2007, SQL Server 2008, and Windows Server 2008. Further, Visual Studio 2008 delivers expanded and improved offerings for software development teams, including tools for database professionals and greater collaboration between development organizations and graphic designers.
SDA Asia spoke with Dilip Mistry,General Manager, Developer and Platform Evangelism (DPE), Microsoft Asia Pacific and Baskaran, founder of Gurusoft Pte Ltd and a Singapore based ISV working with Microsoft Visual Studio to get their perspective on this as well as benefits around the new Visual Studio 2008.
Can you begin by explaining what the release of Visual Studio 2008 means for developers? What features does VS 2008 offer as a rich client platform and what makes VS 2008 stand apart from its earlier versions?
Dilip Mistry (DM): A developer’s day is rarely dull! There are ongoing demands to meet tighter deadlines, work on larger projects and develop more feature rich applications Enter, Microsoft Visual Studio 2008, where we continue to build upon the strong Visual Studio foundations and ensure it is the best development environment for rapidly designing, developing, and testing next-generation, Windows-based solutions, Office based, Mobile based solutions, Web applications and Services.
Today, users are exposed to broad digital experiences and demand rich user experience for any application they interact with. With Visual Studio 2008, developers will be equipped to rapidly build the richest application possible for their target client. For example, Web developers will value the ability to integrate the AJAX into your ASP.NET web pages. Visual Studio 2008 also now supports intellisense for Javascript – and we have listened to our customers’ feedback on the web design view, and have responded by adding a ton of enhancements there as well. For Windows client developers, we have now added the Windows Presentation Foundation designer to Visual Studio 2008. It enables the designer to developer workflow for developing rich XAML based applications. Designers can now create rich user interfaces using blend and seamlessly pass it on to a developer using Visual Studio 2008.
There are multiple new features with Visual Studio 2008. Judging from numerous forums and blogs. One feature that developers are already thanking us for is the ‘multi-targeting’ feature that allows.NET developers to target the .NET 2.0, .NET 3.0, and .NET 3.5. Developers no longer need multiple versions of Visual Studio on their machines to target different .NET framework versions. As the industry shifts towards multi-core processors, I have no doubt that the multi-threaded debugging enhancements will also be welcomed by many developers.
VS 2008 seems like an evolutionary change, it’s not a huge paradigm shift for developers. What keeps it distinct? What is involved with the migration of VS 2005 projects to VS 2008? Can one have VS 2003 VS 2005 and VS 2008 on the same machine?
DM: The software industry is continually changing and developers are often at the forefront of reviewing new technologies and methodologies to understand how they can help them address their key challenges. Whether or not these new technologies are driving evolutionary or revolutionary industry shifts is often subjective, but in my opinion, what keeps Visual Studio distinct is its track record in enabling developers to embrace the latest technologies. For example, Visual Studio.NET proved to be invaluable for many developers who embraced the journey to managed code. Visual Studio 2005 was invaluable for developers building their first Windows presentation Foundation Application. With Visual Studio 2008, I am confident that developers will find it to be a worthy companion for developers wanting to take full advantage of the latest technologies in their Web, Windows, office, mobile or services development projects. For example, Web-based applications development, AJAX libraries and Web Controls have now been integrated.
To assist developers migrating from earlier versions of Visual Studio to Visual Studio 2008, we have included a free migration tool built into Visual Studio 2008 that automatically starts if a Visual Studio 2005 solution or project is loaded. In some cases, you’ll get ‘free’ benefits simply by upgrading your projects from .NET 2.0/3.0 to .NET 3.5. For example, there have been a few Windows Presentation Foundation performance improvements which do not require code modification going from .NET 3.0 to .NET 3.5.
How have the new features of VS 2008 improved development of your programmes that want to report on and manipulate data?
Baskaran: The Report Viewer controls now enable us to compress reports that are rendered or exported in PDF format. The Object Relational Designer (O/R Designer) assists developers in creating and editing objects (LINQ to SQL entities) that map between an application and a remote database and the LINQ features have been a great help as they allow our developers to write queries while doing data manipulations. We no longer need to have multiple lines for each statement, unlike in the past.
How are you getting ready for VS 2008? Also, can you tell what could be the challenges that one will face when working with these new tools in comparison to its pre-decessors VS 2005 and the rest? How are you currently working with VS2008?
Baskaran: The XAML concept is the first challenge to new devolpers when migrating from Visual Studio 2005 to Visual Studio 2008. It is important to have a good understanding of this before proceeding to WPF.
Most talked about with release of VS 2008 is Microsoft's big innovation at the language level is LINQ. It’s a feature of C# 3.0 and Visual Basic 9.0. Can you tell us why such a hype around it? Is it available only to the SQL Server, also it is said that Microsoft C# is Java without reliability, productivity and security?
DM: It is very true that developers are excited about LINQ. Fundamentally, LINQ allows developers to use a single model to query and transform XML, SQL Server and Object data. Developers can effectively continue to use their favourite programming language to query and manipulate the data. They can focus on the ‘what’ as opposed to the ‘how’. No longer do developers have to write the mapping code that translates the object to the format of the data source. LINQ does all of the hard work behind the scenes and not just for XML, enumerable classes or Microsoft SQL Server. Third parties are free to develop customized LINQ data sources for any type of database e.g. DB2, Oracle, mySQL, etc.
The C# developer community is very active and strong. As is the Basic, C++ or Java communities to name a few. The beauty of Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL) is that developers can continue to use their favourite in Programming Language in a common productive IDE (Visual Studio) and take full advantage of the .NET framework. The huge adoption of .NET for developing applications varying from large social networking applications to mission critical line of business systems speaks volumes about developer and user confidence in .NET reliability, productivity and security. Building more secure applications is in many respects a never ending journey and .NET 3.5 represents our latest efforts. We look forward to continuing our partnership with the developer community to build the most secure applications possible.
Visual Studio's native tool code is the excellent but demanding Visual C++. Many C++ Developers feel that Microsoft is relegating Visual C++ to the sideline in favour of newer languages such as C#. We see that not much improvement has been done on C++ although there is some significant improvement to Intellisense in 2008. What has been the reason for this shift?
DM: Microsoft is committed to C++ development. Much of Windows Vista and Office 2007 are written in C++. In fact, Visual Studio 2008 offers several improvements for C++ . The new MFC library in Visual Studio 2008 will enable developers to build modern user interfaces with support for the Office 2007 Ribbon Bar, Office-style menus, Visual Studio-style docking toolbars, tabbed documents and much more. Additionally, MFC libraries which have support for Windows Vista’s new common dialog boxes and controls, better integration with Windows Vista’s UAC or “User Account Control”, new multi-threaded C++ compiler options to build C++ projects in parallel, and better .NET interoperability in the form of new STL libraries. We do value of active interaction with the Visual C++ community.
The biggest new chunk of code in ASP.NET 3.5 is undoubtedly AJAX. Inspite of the shift in numbering from ASP.NET 2.0 to ASP.NET 3.5, changes that developers will face with the new version of ASP.NET are not huge and could make one think of just a minor upgrade. Can you tell us more on this?
DM: ASP.NET 3.5 starts off by offering new controls that have been asked for by our developers. One of these controls is the new ListView control, which we think will be very popular with developers. This control allows the complete control of output in HTML, giving ASP.NET 3.5 Web developers full control over how their website looks. As you mentioned, seamless integration with AJAX is another component to ASP.NET 3.5. In addition to the new controls and AJAX support, Visual Studio 2008 will have a much improved Web designer, with better Intellisense and excellent CSS support.
If you couple these improvements with IIS 7.0, WCF 3.5, our release of Silverlight 1.0, and new language features such as LINQ, we think developers are going to experience a tremendous leap in Web development productivity with the release of Visual Studio 2008.
It is said that Visual Studio 2008 will support an “isolated” deployment option. Is the deployment faster and better here and as a developer how will one know whether to use the integrated or the isolated mode?
DM: Visual Studio 2008 will be released simultaneously with a free product called “Visual Studio 2008 Shell.” This shell enables ISVs to create a custom tool or designer for integration with the VS 2008 Shell. In this deployment model, Visual Studio 2008 Shell is really an upgrade from “Visual Studio 2005's Premier Partner Edition (PPE).”
We have also added a new isolated deployment model which allows ISVs to fully customize and redistribute the ‘shell’ as part of their own development system. This mode allows ISVs to develop a complete branded development environment that can be distributed and deployed as a separate product from Visual Studio 2008. The finished product can be installed and run ‘side-by-side’ with Visual Studio 2008.
We have also published a guide (on MSDN) for interested developers and third parties to differentiate the two deployment modes and offer guidance on the appropriate one to choose given a particular scenario. Generally speaking, enhancements to the IDE of Visual Studio 2008 will use the “Integrated” mode, while separately branded third party products created by ISVs will use the “Isolated” mode.
Will VS 2008 version have dev builds released at the same time as the rest before VS 2008 goes final?
DM: We have been releasing beta version of Visual Studio throughout the development lifecycle.
There are a lot of vendors out there in this space already, who are building some of these project management and product methodology tools. What’s going on with them? How are they taking this move into this space on the part of Microsoft? What are they doing?
DM:Traditionally there been multiple players in the Application Lifecycle Management space targeting different audiences in the overall software development process. Customers typically have been large enterprise development teams which would invest the time and resources to learn these different tools.
Microsoft is focused on ensuring that all members of development team, (regardless of size) can get to an integrated toolset to manage their development projects. For example, database professionals can create database projects that are integrated into Team Foundation Server’s version control, test stored procedures, generate test data, refactor schemas, and more. Designers can use familiar tools like the Microsoft Expression Studio to create user interfaces and produce files that developers can work with directly in Visual Studio. Testers can use Visual Studio improved unit testing, web/load testing, and code profiling tools.
Microsoft’s entry into Application Lifecycle Management has resulted in many new customers embracing application Lifecycle tools. Many of the traditional players are partnering with Microsoft to offer tools and services that work with Visual Studio Team System.
Visual Studio has woken up to the spectre of fierce competition in the IDE space – say Eclipse, Netbeans, IntelliJ, and JBuilder – was there a defining moment when this happened? Moving forward what will be the key areas of focus for Visual Studio?
DM: Based on multiple internal and external research reports I have reviewed recently, Visual Studio remains the primary IDE for developers around the world. In my experience, developers typically have multiple tools in their ‘toolkit’ to help them address the wide number of development projects they need to work on. Competition amongst the different IDE players in the market is healthy for developers.
Baskaran: Visual Studio 2008 integrates all the important features in the abovementioned tools into a single development platform, and provides unique features such as WPF, WCF, WF and extensions to build office application. Visual Studio 2008 also provides us with a high productivity and flexible environment for easy development that is very useful to ISVs like us.
In Accordance to a EMEA Development Survey, the adoption rate of Eclipse has more than doubled in the EMEA region making it the first IDE to challenge Microsoft Visual Studio among developers. What is your take on this and what is the strategy of Microsoft to increase VS 2008 adoption in the face of Eclipse?
DM: Having worked closely with developer and ISV’s in EMEA for over a decade, I can assure you that support and usage for Visual Studio remains very strong in EMEA. For certain projects developers are being asked to work with Eclipse. The good news is that even eclipse developers can connect and collaborate with the broader development team as Eclipse developers can use Visual Studio Team System to manage their overall projects.
What exciting features do you expect to see in the near future to keep VS 2008 at the top of the heap?
Baskaran: We are expecting new features that will allow us to build unified applications for both Windows and Web users and we look forward to being able to build business intelligence applications into tools, such as the new version of Microsoft SharePoint Services, within an integrated Visual Studio 2008 environment.
The WF foundations will be even more powerful if they come with services libraries that can be used as part of the workflow. In WPF, there are certain user interface template controls that are currently not available for editing. We look forward to having thease features in future releases of the product.
As part of WCF, we are expecting more features to manage and control Service Oriented Applications. Examples include hosting multiple services within a Single Service Host.
How do you approach technology evangelism? When did you first encounter VS and what turned you into an evangelist for the platform?
DM: To understand Technology Evangelism, I am sure every developer knows what happens when you are working on a software challenge that you are really passionate about. Every waking minute is spent designing, coding, debugging, testing eating coding, occasionally sleeping and then more coding and the cycle continues until you are finished you cannot stop talking about the application to your colleagues, friends and family.
My job is to find people with this passion, give them access to as much technology and product details that that they can consume and then let them loose to tell the whole world about their experience and insight!
Although I was formally trained in Pascal and shipped applications in Xbase, I joined Microsoft to launch ‘Thunder’ Visual Basic 1.0 and Visual Basic for MS-DOS. Since that time I am proud to have been involved in every major launch of Visual Basic and subsequently Visual Studio. The primary reason why I remain a huge evangelist for the Microsoft Platform is the laser focus Microsoft keeps on providing tools that make it easy to access the full functionality of the Platform, whether it be the PC, Service, Office or Mobile or Services!!
I was playing with Microsoft Popfly recently and I thought – Wow, we have done it again. Now almost anyone can develop a mashup if they want to.
Dilip, You work with a lot of ISVs in Asia & Pacific, helping them design, prototype, develop, tune and benchmark their application. What should the rest of the world know about Microsoft technologies in Asia and about Asian developers?
DM: It has been an absolute pleasure to work with our ISVs and developers in this diverse region. Many of the challenges we see in our developed countries are similar to challenges we face in developed marketing in Western Europe and the United States. There are some interesting nuances which give rise to innovation solutions. For example, in Korea with the broad internet and mobile penetration, we are seeing next generation social networking applications. In Singapore, the government committed to automation is phenomenal with many citizen services being available on the Internet.
In our emerging markets, it is great to see many innovation solutions being engineered by developers to address the needs of users who are typically having their first ‘application’ experience. These include kiosk- based banking, health information via mobile phones, and education programmes with shared PC access. Many of these solutions have been developed by our R&D and Microsoft Innovation Centres that we have throughout the region.
Microsoft has decided that a closed source way at doing business makes sense. What’s your impression of why that is? Why doesn’t Microsoft open source everything?
DM:Microsoft is a platform company committed to building technologies that empower communities of developers and partners to deliver compelling software solutions to customers. This approach is reflected in the size and health of the technology ecosystem in which Microsoft participates: Over 750,000 partner and 5 million developers worldwide have created a vast array of applications using Microsoft platform technologies such as Microsoft Windows, Windows Live, Microsoft Office, .NET platform, Microsoft Windows Server, and Microsoft Xbox.
The Microsoft open source strategy is focused on helping customers and partners succeed in today's heterogeneous technology world. This includes increasing opportunities for business partners regardless of the underlying development model. In addition, it includes increasing opportunities for developers to learn and create by combining community-oriented open source with traditional commercial approaches to software development.
This starts with participating and contributing to a broad range of choices for developing and deploying software, including open source approaches and applications. From thousands of lines of code and scripts on MSDN and TechNet, to open source applications like IronPython, ASP.NET AJAX, SharePoint Learning Kit, and WiX on CodePlex and SourceForge, Microsoft is continually growing the number of products released with open source access.
Any announcements that you will want to make on behalf of Microsoft?
DM: I do not have any announcements to make per se, but I do want to mention that there has never been a more exciting time to be a software developer. We are all experimenting with new models for software design, development, deployment and monetization to build next generation applications, to help our users realise their full potential. At Microsoft, we will continue our long tradition of working closely with software developers by providing them with the latest Tools, Platforms and connections. I wish all software developers success in their development projects. |
