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I come from a strong Java background and in recent years have been also developing in C#.
What I can never understand is how far behind (Personal Opinion) the Visual Studio IDE's are in compared with Intelli-J IDEA and Eclipse (Java).
There have been improvements by Microsoft from VS 2005 to VS 2008, but I feel they are not quite there in terms of taking the development experience to the next level.
What I want to know is, is VS 2010 any different?
Why is it that the tools and syntax editors are so much more "evolved" in the Java IDE's.
Just to name a few:
Code Completion (Much more advance in Java IDE's)
Ant Integration (Eclipse and IDEA) vs Visual Studio Build Events
Lack of Code Repository integration in VS (Subversion and CVS) out of the box.
Lack of Advance Re-factoring Tools in Visual Studio.
Thanks.
A few points…
People tend to like what they know.
It is quicker to get up-to-speed in C# as the IDE and most of the tools / docs come from a single source.
In the Java world you have a lot more chooses, this is great for expert that spend times learning about them all, but does also lead to its own problems.
Adding ReSharper or Refactor to Visual Studio may give you what you want.
The Visual Studio debugging is great.
Visual Studio tries to make life easy for you by trying to find missing dlls etc and then storing where they are in the registry. This may be great for a 1 man project, but can often lead to build problems across developer’s machines if you are not careful. In the Java world you have to edit more config file by hand, but at least you can put these files under source code control.
There is not a small command line tool that works well on a build server that will build all types of Visual Studio projects. However in day to day usage you don’t need to learn how to use command tools, as Visual Studio hides them form you.
I think these days most programmers
are just happier with the IDE they
know best.
Note I wrote this over 6 years ago, since then C#/.Net has got a lot more complex, with lots of open source projects. Microsoft has also open sourced a lot of the .net framework. For web and server side development I expect there is now little to choose between the Java world and the .Net world. For “smart clients” .net still have a lot to offer including the new support from cross device phone development.
For multi-threaded IO, I think c# is years ahead of Java, but that could change as C# and Java keeps learning from each other...
Visual Studio has definitely been coming on over the last few years - although many of the improvements have basically been things that Eclipse has had for ages (I haven't used IDEA myself).
You may well want to look at ReSharper, which brings more goodness to Visual Studio, along with the VS2010 Productivity PowerTools.
Also, have a look at Scott Guthrie's blog series about improvements in VS2010. Lots of goodies in there.
All tools have their strengths and weaknesses - these days I'm about as happy in Visual Studio as in Eclipse... although I'm much happier writing C# than Java :) One area where Visual Studio really shines is debugging though... I find things like the VS Watch window to be much better than Eclipse's equivalent.
Visual studio 2017 is still far far behind Intellij IDEA. I'm using both and i can say that even VS2017 with ReSharper is not comparable with IDEA.
Biggest problem for me is that VS still doesn't offer usable hot reload debugging experience. I'm crying every time i have to rebuild my .NET MVC project (it is +- fast, but IIS Express load time ~ 15s EVERY time you make even the smallest change in your code).
If you want to argue with "Edit and continue" so so hotreload function - it is absolutely useless, you can't do almost any change in code without rebuilding (and everytime you have to manually break code and close opened tab with useless information).
So i'm really looking forward for full version of IntelliJ Rider bringing all super user friendly possibilities of IntelliJ IDEA to the .NET world!
I don't agree with you. I think VS is much more easy to use.
For example, when i need to create a web application. I open VS and create a new project (Web Application). After the project created, i press f5 and tadda!...
But if want to create my web application with Java, i need to install a server or some frameworks. Still i don't know how can i create a web application?
Or, Windows Application.
At VS, you don't need do any thing to create a windows based application like web application. but if i want to create windows based application with Java, i had to do something.
I think VS IDE is more user friendly than Java IDE's.
Is it safe to use the beta versions of Visual Studio?
By safe I mean, while developing any project in this studio, is it probable that it may cause some losses to my project? Or any other kind of risk?
Should I just use the studio 2008 and
wait for the stable version of Studio
2010?
Purpose of the question: I am doing my graduation project in .NET framework (includes - C#, WPF etc.).So I don't want to put my project at any risk because of some issue regarding (beta) visual studio.Hence the question.
As long as you are using a version control system, there should be no problem. Simply check out your project (or better yet, create a vs2010 branch) to an experimental folder and work from there.
There are no hidden risks when you use version control appropriately.
Visual Studio 2010 will convert your project files to its new format, meaning you'll have trouble if you want to go back to VS2008 later. I'd suggest holding off for now unless you can find a way to keep both old and new versions of the project files up to date.
There's always a risk in using beta software (but then again, there's always a risk in using any software). The whole reason it's called beta is because the company is not confident that it's got all the bugs worked out. Otherwise, it would have been released so they could start raking in the moola.
There are quite a few ways to mitigate the possibility of any beta software (not limited to VS2010 or even any programming-related product) from causing you trouble. Choose any from this list, which is by no means exhaustive:
Don't use it on the same data (be it accounting information or source code) until you've run it in parallel and gotten the same results as with the older version.
Plan a backout strategy if the software is so bad that it's easier to go back than to try and go forward.
Backup your data even more frequently during the periods where you're using the beta software, up until the point that you're comfortable with it and can revert to a more normal backup strategy.
Don't use beta software at all - wait for the real release (or SP1 if you want to be even safer). There may not be a driving force behind updating to the latest version.
As a company, limit your exposure to the beta software to a small set of your employees. So, for example, if you have six different teams, choose the least important as a sacrificial lamb, so to speak.
My own personal preference is to wait until everyone else has sorted out the problems first. I didn't upgrade to the latest Ubuntu while it was in beta (I still got burnt a little bit with the video and X but that particular problem already had a solution on the net). I don't download the latest and greatest Eclipse until it's been in use for a few months. I'm still using VS2008 under Windows XP since there's nothing I think I need in the latest release (of VS or Windows).
We obviously have the latest and greatest OS' in our test environments but they're crash-and-burn environments that won't cause any real pain if they blow up (other than a rebuild but even that's pretty painless nowadays).
For your particular circumstance, I would probably stick with a tried and true version. You don't seem to have a pressing need for any of the new features in your question and the sort of failure you're talking about is not just losing some information at work which, while annoying, is probably backed up to the point where your career would survive.
A similar loss of your educational work would affect you for a long time if you fail your subject because of it. I would probably just concentrate on getting it finished rather than worrying about what VS2010 beta might do to my work. Don't misunderstand me, you should still be protecting your work even with VS2008 but I'd personally feel safer with that option.
Then, if you have some spare time at the end of your project (hah! as if that would happen!), you could try to convert what you've done so far to VS2010. If it all goes pear-shaped, you still have all the VS2008 stuff available.
There is certainly risk in using unproven software in that it could behave unexpectedly. Some of the answers here focus on protecting your source code and that is a valid concern, but you should also consider other risks.
Could Visual Studio 2010 make your system unstable? Having your source code in a local instance of source control won't do you much good if Visual Studio corrupts your hard drive. Even if you backed up regularly, you'd still be out a good day or two (MINIMUM) rebuilding your desktop.
Also, what do you intend to do with the finished product? Will a professor attempt to open the project on their own desktop? Are you expected to deploy it to another environment? We see these "Works on my computer" problems using proven software, a beta certainly increases the probability of running into this type of problem.
So yes, there is certainly increased risk in using a beta. You can take steps to mitigate the risks but with important work those are steps you should be taking anyway. Is the benefit of using Visual Studio 2010 worth the increased probability of delays / data loss / grade impact?
I know I'm experimenting with VS2010 and I haven't seen severe problems but betas are not proven/guaranteed - the overall risk is probably slight but it is a risk nonetheless.
I guess I would approach the question differently...Is there any real value in using VS 2010 over 2008? I have been using both for a while and I would say, No.
I have had some mysterious crashes with VS 2010 and the application has disappeared on me, causing me to lose any unsaved data.
If you are integrating IronPython / Ruby or working with Office or VB style COM, there is more support for this in .NET 4.0. Beyond that, most of the changes add some shine to the IDE, but not much real value.
my 2 cents.
The biggest risks you will face are crashes, random tool window misplacements, and occasionally Visual Studio will refuse to start and you will have to reset all your settings to have it working again. 1 (I am anyway reasonably happy with Visual Studio 2010 and don't regret having installed it; in my case the compelling reasons were unit testing and visual designer for Silverlight)
But as ocdecio says, there should not be danger for your code, especially if you use a source control system.
As an additional advise, target your projects to .NET Framework 3.5. Using a beta development tool may be ok, using a beta .NET Framework in a production environment is usually not.
1 This crash is supposed to be caused by using raster fonts for the code editor, but it has happened to me without using this type of fonts.
Given that you've said the project will be "tested on another system", the answer is simple: use VS2008. VS2010 solutions cannot be opened by earlier versions, and I wouldn't bet my graduation project on whether or not someone else has VS2010 installed.
Other reasons to stick with VS2008:
VS2010 probably doesn't gain you much.
There are bugs, and I'd rather be working on getting my graduation project done rather than working around problems with my development tool.
If you need help along the way, those that can potentially help probably aren't using the same version. That may make a difference, it may not.
Another thing to consider.. usually the EULA prohibits you from deploying and/or shipping a product using a Beta version of the toolset. I'm not sure this applies in your situation but it's a point to consider.
Another potential issue I've heard of is that sometimes Visual Studio betas refuse to uninstall when it comes time to put in the RTM version. So as long as you don't mind reinstalling Windows when you're ready to install RTM and you've taken the other answers into consideration, then go ahead.
Since your project is for a graduation project and not for full production release, I would say use the latest/stable version of Visual Studio 2010.
You will gain more than you will lose as you will be using the latest technology which will be more useful going forward.
There is an issue for touch screen machines which may render WPF applications unusable.
A workaround exists. See details:
‘MS.Win32.Penimc.UnsafeNativeMethods’ Threw An Exception
fix: C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.0\WPF>regsvr32 PenIMC.dll
The biggest problem I have with VS2010 Beta 2 is designer. The Windows Form Designer generates buggy code (Microsoft Connect bug id 507267 and 499925). So I have to edit the form in older version of Visual Studio
I have a few other problems not related to code lose, like random crashing and wizard disappearing.
I've just spent two weeks in VS 2010 beta 2 doing some serious prototyping work. It all went pretty smoothly, and I really like VS 2010. At the end, I moved all the code back to VS 2005 and integrated it with my current project. My experience:
Moving the code back to 2005 was pretty easy. I did try not to use any C# features from 2008 or 2010. The only thing I missed was C#'s implicit properties, but those are easily fixed.
Yes, the project and solution files are not backward compatible. To migrate back, I just created new projects in 2005, and pasted the source files in through Visual Studio. Worked like a charm.
I did find one thing that would consistently crash 2010. If you use the splitter to view two different sections of a file at once, and cut-and-paste from one pane to the other, VS 2010 will roll over and die pretty quickly (not necessarily at the time of the cut-and-paste, but very soon afterwards).
There are some nice productivity features in 2010. You can drag a tab out and make it a window. In Windows 7, you can drag it to the top of the screen to maximize, or to the side to use have the screen. Dragging one file to one side of the screen, and another file to the other side, means you get the whole screen to edit two files, side by side. Very nice. (Even better on two monitors, but I was on a laptop.) The "Quick Find" dialog can now be docked -- that's a huge improvement.
As others have mentioned, use source control, but VS 2010 really is not unstable enough to be any more of an issue than VS 2008. Note that Team Foundation Server 2010 is also available in beta, and will be part of all MSDN subscriptions. It installs under Win7 and Vista. I'm using it for source control on my laptop! Team Explorer is integrated into VS 2010.
I am thinking of creating a product based on the Visual Studio Shell (primarily isolated mode). Since Visual Studio 2010 will most likely be RTM before my product, does it make sense to start with VS2010 as a base rather than VS2008?
Has anyone looked at what they changed in connection to the shell framework and if it is improved enough to warrant using it over the better documented and not-beta 2008?
The editor extensability model is changed radically since it is based off MEF and WPF in 2010. If you extend the editor on 2008, it is likely you will have to make quite a few changes to get stuff working in 2010.
However, a large amount of the extensability still depends on the old VSIP/COM which remain unchanged.
If you plan on shipping with the 2010 time frame I think skipping 2008 is not a bad idea.
Speaking as one who is working on a product based on VS2008 shell I would strongly suggest to use VS2010 instead as base. They have cleaned up their interface and probably fixed a lot of the bugs that are in the VS2008 shell. I think they would also be more sensitive to bugs than when they happen in the "old" VSShell.
This is really not a technical question, in my mind - you need to think about your customers before yourself - is there a large enough crowd of people who use vs08?
(I encountered a similar question and concluded that for my scenario - I need to support VS08)
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I'm considering using SVN for my .Net projects, and I'd like to know what plugins are available for integrating the source control capabilities directly into the Visual Studio IDE.
I already know about the following Visual Studio extensions:
VisualSVN, which seems great but is not free. It is implemented as a low-level VS package extension. Is anyone using it?
AnkhSVN, which is free but I've heard it's a bit buggy. It is implemented as a VS add-in extension. Is anyone using it? are you experiencing problems? Edit: The 2.0 version is a complete rewrite and seems to solve the problem I've heard about (which were related to the 1.x versions)
Edit : TortoiseSVN + Mindscape's FileExplorer VS Extension, which is not a real IDE integration but somewhat eases the use of TortoiseSVN from Visual Studio.
Edit : I've found a few comparison posts between AnkhSVN and VisualSVN here, here and here.
I've used AnkhSVN for the past year and I've never had a problem with it. I switch between that and TFS and some of the times I think I prefer AnkhSVN to TFS.
I use VisualSVN and it works great, but you're correct, it's not free. No experience with Ankh here.
Early versions (1.X) of AnkhSVN were pretty unstable. Latest builds (v2.0.x) work as a native VisualStudio source control provider and it's very stable. I would recommend you to just download and try it yourself.
I also use AnkhSVN and it does work OK but I tend to drop to the file system to work with TortoiseSVN. For some reason I feel safer using Tortoise. I think that come's from concerns about Visual Studio than it is AnkhSsvn.
I tried AnkhSVN, but didn't like it. It tried to do too many things automatically and behind the scenes (e.g. adding files to SVN). I prefer if I see exactly what happens.
Now I mainly use TortoiseSVN (outside Visual Studio) or sometimes Mindscape VS FileExplorer in Visual Studio (which is available for free).
Note: VS FileExplorer plugin simply displays a file explorer in VS and allows you to invoke TortoiseSVN from there (and it also displays the TortoiseSVN overlay icons).
Update:
I reinstalled the current version of AnkhSVN 2.0.5250 and tried to reproduce the problems described above in a sample solution.
Result: AnkhSVN did exactly what I expected. I was not able to reproduce any of the problems. I think it might be time to give AnkhSVN another try at work!
Update 2:
I have now used AnkhSVN for some days, and I have to say it works very well. It's a big improvement compared to the previous version (1.x).
I use AnkhSVN and haven't had any issues worth complaining about. Sometimes (about 1 in 10 times?) I do get a strange nondescript error trying to commit, but restarting VS has always fixed the problem.
Edit: The error actually seems to be coming from the dataset designer, not AnkhSVN. Sometimes I get an error where it tries to "read or write to protected memory", which then just continues until I restart VS. Sorry for the confusion.
I have used both AnkhSVN and VisualSVN each for about 6 months. I prefer VisualSVN for one reason alone: Compatibility.
At my work, we keep our Subversion server and TortoiseSVN software very up-to-date (some people just go with one version and stick with it for years, but that's not our style). With new versions sometimes comes new working copy formats and it seems that AnkhSVN is very slow to adapt these new formats. What happens at this point is AnkhSVN completely breaks:
All the source files appear as "Added" even though they are all committed.
We are no longer able to Commit. An error appears claiming it does not recognize the new format.
VisualSVN has been "on the ball" in this respect as we have never had any compatibility issues with their software. This factor alone easily swayed me toward VisualSVN.
The Agent SVN plug-in does a good job of integrating Subversion and Visual Studio, but it too is not free.
Another vote for visual SVN. To be honest, I think its just me being lazy. I could do everything visual svn does with just using tortoise, but it saves me from switching between programs. The color coded warning lights you get with visual svn are nice, but not that big a deal.
I use VisualSvn and it's fine. It wasn't expensive and it helps make sure you include all files you've added to the solution. It's not so good when using locking in svn (but then svn isn't great at locking files). If you want to edit a file that has needs-lock set, it will automatically update it when you lock it (sensible), but that could end up doing an update when you dont want it too.
I've got into trying Svn Monitor too and am happy with that, but it does seem to grind my computer to a halt.
I've tried old versions of ANKH but got in a mess and corrupted the svn repository (I suspect that was version 1.x) so I'd guess later versions are better.
I use VisualSVN, and love it. It may not be free but I found it extremely reliable, very well integrated, and very much worth the $49 per license. By setting up a few key-bindings comitting and updating become almost second-nature to my entire team (most of whom had no previous SVN/SCC experience).
Being able to quickly scan the solution explorer to see which files had changed was very useful for keeping tabs on things for writing status reports and the like (but that's probably specific to my overly beurocratic manager).
The "Checkout Solution from SVN" feature was great for quickly getting the summer student interns setup and giving them a gentle introduction to version control. Again, this is probably specific to our needs so may not be of interest to you.
So a thumbs-up for VisualSVN and the convenience it gives us.
My experience with working with AnkhSVN is better than tortoise but it still has a lot of flaws that you really don't get with native Visual Studio plugins like Source Safe, TFS, Dynamic soft. It has real problems with the .svn folders and synchronising so you end up spending a portion of your time removing the .svn folder and starting again.
That's my experience. One example is moving a folder from one project (in the same solution) to another project. It breaks on this from the working set being different. The solution is to go into the folder and remove the .svn files but it seems like a a lot of effort.
I'm use to it being a mirror of my filesystem though, and basic 2 developer branches of files.
The AnkhSVN plug-in is not too bad.
I use vsTortoise.
It works very nice especially when you are familiar with TortoiseSVN and it's free.
I am having trouble with my Visual Studio 2005 IntelliSense for some time now.
It used to work fine, but for some reason the 'Updating IntelliSense...' does no longer seem to be able to complete for the solution I'm working on currenly- it simply gets stuck somewhere at about 3-bars of progress and blocks one of my precious CPUs for eternity.
Deleting the .ncb file of my solution and performing a full 'Clean' afterwards was no help.
The 'Update' simply gets stuck again.
The project I'm working on is a fairly large C++ solution with 50+ projects, quite a few template classes (even more lately) and in general quite complex. I have no idea which impact this might have on the IntelliSense.
Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 and all hotfixes which rely on it are not
installed (we hade huge problems with this one, so we haven't migrated yet).
Any answer is very much appreciated on this one. Gives me the creeps..
Cheers,
\Bjoern
Rename "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\vcpackages\feacp.dll" to something else (like "feacp.bak") to disable Intellisense.
I recommend getting Visual Assist X to make up for it (it also has a number of other useful features as well).
I have found that the best fix for Intellisense in VS2005 is to install SP1, and then this hotfix: 947315. It has the added benefit of fixing most of the multi-core build issues.
This hotfix also includes the ability to control Intellisense via Macros. More information here.
As for making SP1 more friendly for existing code, you might also check out this hotfix for template compilation: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/930198
Intellsense is problematic. Very problematic. When it works, it's great, but more often than not it will cause more problems than it's worth. It will hang up, it will parse through files while you are trying to compile code and will generally make VC 2005 sometimes run like a dog. As a previous poster suggested, disable intellisense (and chose a potential alternative -- I also support VAX).
Supposedly the hotfix and SP1 provided by MS will fix some intellisense problems, but not all. We have seen minimal help from these where I work. You are better off to disable it and rely on something else.
My feeling is that the slowness comes from the size of the projects. Yours seems like it might fall into that case.
Here is the only solution that works for me.