I'm about to start a new WPF project and there are a number of things in 4.0 that I need (multitouch for one). I've heard that VS 2010 beta 2 will be released at PDC in November so I'm considering starting the project in beta 1 now, then migrating to beta 2 when it becomes available. Assuming I only need to live with the environment for about 3 months would it be reasonable to start this project in VS 2010 beta 1 or is it not ready for daily development?
I'm not sure you're going to get the answer you're looking for here. In part because it's really hard to understand what you mean by "ready".
Visual Studio 2010 Beta1 is a beta product and hence will have beta issues. It will crash more often, have more performance issues, less features and generally speaking not as smooth of an experience as an RTM product would. That's essentially the definition of a beta.
But is it ready? I use it on a daily basis at home and work for essentially every project I work on (including those which ship on the 2.0 or 3.5 framework). Yeah I occasionally run into some annoying bugs. But nothing so severe that I stopped using the product.
I've been doing a few things myself with .NET 4.0 recently, nothing major or for production, but it seems stable enough.
Though others may have had a different experience to me.
As it's beta software, I wouldn't recommend using it for Production purposes until it's fully released, or at the point of RC.
However, like I say, it seems to be stable enough in the .NET aspect of things, but I've not tpyed with WPF 4 yet so I would leave that decision up to you.
Related
I work in the production team in a petroleum refinery, neither me or anyone i, the department works in IT or software engineering, but we love our VBA macros.
In order to go beyond what one can do with VBA, I started doing some small projects using Visual Studio Express and VB.NET
These projects are getting bigger and bigger, and I am starting to feel limited by VS Express and I am therefore building a business case for a VS Professional licence (my company is too big for Community).
I'll go with a stand-alone licence, since the subscriptions are way overkill for what I do, but even the stand-alone licence is divided in two parts (https://www.visualstudio.com/fr/vs/pricing/).
You can either buy a licence for a fee of $500, or subscribe for $45 a month. Since I plan on using the software for at least a year, the one-time-fee is cheaper, and the only difference between the two is access to older and newer versions. Hence the questions:
Is the inability to use the pro versions of previous iterations of Visual Studio a big downside? Will I be able to work without big issues?
Are newer versions a must-have when they come out, or can I sit on VS2017 for a couple years without issues?
Usage of older versions of visual studio like 2013-2015 depends on projects /solutions that for whatever reason can not be migrated to a newer version of visual studio. In my experience usually companies which do not wish to purchase new licenses. I see no reason why you need the older versions.
As for the newer versions. The main reason I have seen for a visual studio upgrade is the usage of newer .NET versions. A version X of visual studio can only run .NET up till version Y. When version Y+1 of .NET comes out this means if you wish to make use of the new features/changes in .NET Y+1 you would have to upgrade .
I'm doing a project with a couple of other guys who have vs10, will it hurt if just I upgrade to vs12. Will it hurt when we all check in on svn? Will everything still be compatible as far as wpf, mvc, etc.. goes. Should I be aware of anything about the new visual studio 2012?
I personally would keep a similar environment to everyone else working on the project - either all go 2012 or all stay 2010.
Not to say that there are or are not known issues with working between the two environments, but why introduce possible problems when you're going to work with the lowest possible common denominator anyways?
Using VS2012 and VS2010 seems to work flawlessly, so far. I installed it a month ago when it became available on MSDN. I've worked on several problems since then without any compatibility issues. Rather worryingly though, we've come across an issue where a linq to entities query works fine on a machine without .net 4.5, but fails on a machine with .net 4.5, despite the project targeting .net 4.0. A colleague is looking at this at the moment, so I don't have any more details
I really want to upgrade to Visual Studio 2010. But since I do a lot of development for the Pocket PC version of Windows Mobile I cannot. (I develop for a Symbol device that does not support Windows Phone 7, so that is not a option.)
Does any one know any kind of time frame of when Microsoft plans to add support for Smart Device Projects into Visual Studio 2010?
Update: Since this is looking less and less likely without intervention from the users, Please go here and vote for this feature.
Microsoft's current public statement says that, apart from Windows Phone 7 development, there will not be Smart Device Application Development added to Visual Studio 2010.
This obviously raises concerns and has implications for a lot of people, and there are more than a few of us lobbying Microsoft very hard to change that plan and to get them to include some sort of support for Smart Device programming outside of Windows Phone.
I'm hopeful, maybe even optimistic, that their stance will change and that we will get something - even if it's only CF 3.5 targeting actual hardware (i.e. no emulator support) - at some point down the road. Right now they've got all hands on deck trying to get Windows Phone out the door, and until that happens, I wouldn't expect much for resource allocation toward other device features.
So what does that actually mean? In my mind I wouldn't postpone installing VS2010 until they have device support. My guess is it won't happen until early next year at the absolute earliest and realistically I would say mid to late next year if it happens at all. Again, I'm optimistic that it will, but I'm also a realist, so I'm not going to base my business decisions and future on it happening.
Add your support to the following Microsoft Connect Item, it's had quite a bit of interest being the 3rd highest voted suggestion so far.
http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/595712/no-support-for-windows-ce-and-compact-framework-development-in-vs2010
Through private conversations I've had with the Customer Advocacy Team at MS it would appear that they are really digging their heels in over this. MS reneged on promises to include Smart Device Framework support in VS2010 early on in the product life cycle.
It is really frustrating because at some point the development tools will fragment and you'll end up with having to maintain separate development, source control and build systems for targeting Windows CE. Who is to say that the tools will even work on future versions of Windows either or even if they will live side by side with future versions of VS. Remember this lack of support also hurts people doing unmanaged code on CE too.
MS is doing a great job of remaining silent here, the silence is already causing people to look at alternative platforms. Without a statement of intent no business is going to invest in Windows CE development without knowing the future of the OS and the tools to develop on it.
All recent Visual Studio versions can be installed side by side. You could upgrade now for desktop development, then when smart device support is rolled out, migrate your projects to VS2010.
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/setupprerelease/thread/fce95ec7-728d-41d1-ab13-74a2fd3a4136
I am forced to have two VS installations side by side. However, another issue - that is causing me more pain is that TFS 2010 doesn't work with VS 2008 - there is a plugin, of course, but there are many issues with it which make it unusable.
So to have source control, I have installed SVN on my machine.
Microsoft once again, has proven that they have no concern for the devs at all. Their tools don't work together, backward compatibility is not there, all of which makes their dev tools a big load of crap.
MS replied to that connect issue:
Hi folks,
In the first quarter of 2013, we plan to provide tooling for Visual
Studio 2012 to create apps for Windows Embedded Compact v.Next. We’ll
be announcing more details in September, including the roadmap for
.NET CF. You can find more details this Fall in the Windows Embedded
Compact website at http://www.windowsembedded.com.
thanks, Doug Turnure Visual Studio PM
Should I start using VS2010 Beta 2 for development work now?
What reasons are there for and against?
You can take two angles with this; using Visual Studio to build your solutions in a .NET 3.5 or earlier OR using it to build applications in .NET 4. Firstly, familiarise yourself with what’s new in both the IDE and the framework (I’ve got a quick, illustrated overview here and there's heaps of other info on the web) and see what you’re actually going to be able to take advantage of in your situation. Secondly, be aware of your target environment; If you’re publishing to shared hosting or client machines you need to consider whether the .NET 4 approach is wise while it's in beta.
I’ve previously built solutions on the last couple of generations of Visual Studio and .NET whilst in beta 2. You’ve got a go-live license so you can actually productionise solutions and both previous generations have been very stable without any significantbugs or changes from beta 2 to alpha versions.
If you can address the issues above, I say go for it!
Only if you're interested in trying it out. Don't use it for real work as it. It's a beta, which means that significant bugs may still be lying around in the code.
We started using VS*2008* Beta 2, when it came out, as our main dev environment - but targeted .NET Framework 2.0 only initially. This was mainly because VS2005 was such a dog. As to whether you want to start targeting .NET 4.0 now is your decision - but I can't see the harm in using it for targeting .NET 2.0 - 3.5.
I think we'll stick with VS 2008 for our main dev environment until at least a 2010-compatible version of CodeRush/Refactor Pro comes out.
I say whats wrong with 2008? You could use 2010 to build for 3.5 framework if you really wanted to, but I'd seriously leave it, it might be more trouble than its worth..who knows?
I have it installed and I've had a play with it and I've even installed resharper beta that works with 2010. But this is only to give the new tools a test run.
The company I work for are really good at keeping up with the latest tools, for example we have already rolled out windows 7 to some developer machines, but we wouldn't go as far as using a beta IDE in a production environment.
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Currently thinking about pitching the argument for us migration from vs 2005 (winforms) to vs 2008 (wpf). My main point being the new UI design features.
I am slightly worried that we will put loads of work into upgrading everything only for us to have to do the same when 2010 comes along? So this leads to also consider skipping 2008 and just adopting 2010 as soon as its released.
Anyone been in the similar situation?
Also any arguments for and against for welcomed.
Cheers.
Personally I think it will be fairly safe to go to 2008 as 2010 is just extensions on top of it and enhancements for Visual Studio design time support for WPF. Therefore, the transition shouldn't be all that complicated. More like a 2005-2008 upgrade of a Win Forms or ASP.NET project, which is a cakewalk.
I find that it is better to upgrade sooner than later, so that you don't get "bogged down" with the existing framework/system. If you continue building on something that you will ultimately replace, it becomes harder and harder to justify to management to move.
I was in the same situation and opted to go down the MSDN subscription route, where I get all the new development tools as they come out. I have a spare machine the I use for 'the next version' of the compiler, that I use for migration testing, thus I at least know what to expect when the decision has to be made. This works well for me, and I guess if you have a decent virtualisation set-up all the better.
New compiler versions didn't break my build, but did hurt many of my automated tests, and add-in productivity tools. Basically. you need regression tests of some kind to ascertain the damage moving to a new version is likely to cause.
Your question doesn't quite make sense to me. Are you asking if you should migrate existing applications from Winforms to WPF? Or do you just want to start making new WPF applications but still work with existing Winform projects?
Either way, migrating from Visual Studio 2005 to 2008 is extremely simple. Existing Winform projects request a conversion which takes a few seconds and has never failed for me (dozens of solutions and 100s of projects converted over the last couple months).
However, this has nothing to do with Winforms and WPF.
If you want to start building WPF apps there is no reason to wait for VS 2010. VS 2008 has excellent support for both application types.
I agree with those suggesting adopting VS 2008 now. One thing to consider though is that WPF comes with a fairly high learning curve. I've had some limited exposure to WPF and Silverlight and am finding them to be a complete "mind change" from the WinForms model. Good luck.
I'd make the jump now if I was in your shoes. It'll minimize the impact of the 2010 jump down the line by getting you used to the many new features you'll already have to get used to. Additionally you'll get to enjoy many months of better performance and features before 2010 is available.
Winforms vs WPF is a world of difference. It's a much bigger change than looking at migrating from 2005 to 2008. I would not have that as the driving reason to upgrade to 2008. I also have no idea of the scope of your project and if WPF is really the best direction to take your product. Or if expression blend is all the tooling you need to get these UIs going.
Instead of pitching the WPF pitch I would focus on the real benefits you can get immediately. With 2008 you have multi-targeting so you can build all the applications you used to build in 2005 and have them target the 2.0 framework. In my experience I find 2008 faster and the refactoring improvements are a great addition. There are a ton of other new improvements in 2008 which you get out-of-the-box and can start using from day 1.
According to Rico the head architect of 2010 you will get even richer multi-targetting with 2010 which will allow you to adopt 2010 earlier and not force you to use CLR version 4 from get go.
At the moment I've made it a practice to upgrade to the latest version as soon as possible. Although for an application developer it's got its own pitfalls, Ex. .Net Framework 3.5 is not found on most computers, and if I ship the bootstrap installer which is 20 MB it insists on an active Internet connection to download the files needed. The full installer is 198 MBs and though I don't like it, I have to ship it along with the software.
For a web developer though the problem is easier to solve, you only have to worry about making it work at the server and things work automatically for the users. So if you're making a web solution I think Migration is easier.
If you're making an application software, I think you should weigh the advantages that migration offers with the changes it will make to your deployment scheme. I don't know how many people will agree with this, but I believe that application developers should be one upgrade behind.
There is an underlying process question here that I think shouldn't be overlooked:
When is the proper time to upgrade development tools and production environments?
On the one hand you could skip 2008 though this leads to the question of when would 2010 be adopted: Upon first release, first service pack release, or some other milestone? This may lead to creating more legacy code if you stay locked in on 2005 using the 2.0 framework and others move onto other frameworks. Even if you switch to 2008, it can still target the 2.0 framework so that that upgrade of the .Net framework may happen separately which some may like. Another key point in this camp is who does the research to evaluate the differences between versions to see which is worth the shift.
On the other, you could suggest that there be a continuous strategy of preparing to upgrade every 3 years or so as the Visual Studio releases of the past decade were roughly 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2008 so far. This would seem to me to be the better approach as there is more of a constant evolution going on rather than staying locked in at all. In this case there may be new features that get used since the new tools come quickly compared to the first case where the shift may be viewed as a large step whereas in this case it isn't that big since you are always looking to move in 2-3 years.
Course as I say this my old work machine has Visual Studio 2003, 2005 and 2008, so I am kind of in that latter camp which makes sense to me. I remember 10 years ago my work machine had NT 4.0, Pentium II 333 MHz processor, 64 MB of RAM and a 4 GB hard drive that had to be 2 partitions as it wouldn't let one partition be that big. Now my work machine has 4 GB of RAM alone, a 2.66 GHz dual core processor and a 160 GB hard drive. Could I in another 10 years have a machine with hundreds of GBs of RAM? While that may seem ridiculous, if I were sharing a machine with a handful of other developers, it may make sense to divide up a huge amount of memory amongst us all.