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Closed 10 years ago.
Can anyone recommend any good add-ons or plugins for Microsoft Visual Studio?
Freebies are preferred, but if it is worth the cost then that's fine.
SmartPaster - (FREE) Copy/Paste code generator for strings
AnkhSvn - (FREE) SVN Source Control Integration for VS.NET
VisualSVN Server - (FREE) Source Control
ReSharper - IDE enhancement that helps with refactoring and productivity
CodeRush - Code gen macros on steroids
Refactor - Code refactoring aid
CodeMaid (FREE) - Code cleanup, organization and complexity analysis
CodeSmith - Code Generator
GhostDoc - (FREE) Simple code commenting tool
DXCore (FREE) and its many awesome plugins: DxCore Community Plugins, CR_Documentor, CodeStyleEnforcer, RedGreen
TestDriven.Net - (FREE/PAY) Unit Testing Aid
Reflector - (PAY) Feature rich .Net Disassembler Reflector AddIn's
Web Deployment Projects - Provides additional functionality to build and deploy Web sites and Web applications (source).
StudioTools - (FREE) Navigation assistant, code metrics tool, incremental search, file explorer in visual studio and tear off editor windows. Moved from old site (archive.org) to new site and discontinued.
Not free, but ReSharper is definitely one recommendation.
Whole Tomato's Visual Assist X. I absolutely swear by it. I would like to see a better plug in for Lint than Visual Lint by Riverblade, but since that will eventually be moved onto the build server I don't mind running it every couple of days manually.
PowerCommands is a Microsoft-created plugin that offers a variety of new features that one would think probably should have been in Visual Studio in the first place.
These include
Copying/Pasting project references!
"Open Containing Folder" to jump straight to the hard-drive location of a file or project
Automatic reorganizig and sorting of using statements
"Open Command Prompt Here" to open a command prompt in any of your project folders.
Collapse Projects
RockScroll is awesome, and free.
Addendum
As #Andrei points out, MetalScroll is a better alternative. It's Open Source, and corrects some annoying things about RS.
I'm a big fan of CodeRush and Refactor! Pro by DevExpress. I've been using them for a number of years, and without a doubt it makes me a faster developer. Also, both are built on a free framework called DXCore that allows you to develop your own plug-ins for Visual Studio, and the sky is the limit there...
Resharper
Resharper MbUnit Test Runner Add-On
SQL Prompt for Database Projects (works inside your SQL Management Studio as well)
Ankh SVN 2.0+ for free SVN support (v1.x pales in comparison)
TeamCity plug-in to monitor your builds, personal builds, and bug tracking
I find Ghost Doc to be very useful.
GhostDoc is a free add-in for Visual Studio that automatically generates XML
documentation comments for C#. Either by using existing documentation inherited
from base classes or implemented interfaces, or by deducing comments from
name and type of e.g. methods, properties or parameters.
If you use SVN for source control, definitely get VisualSVN. It enables TortoiseSVN interactions from within the Visual Studio IDE.
I also echo the Resharper comment. Retail price is a little steep, but if you're a student or otherwise educationally affiliated, it's actually pretty cheap.
+1 Visual Assist.
It's unfortunate that you need a plugin to get really good intellisense but it's definitely worth paying for.
LinqPad is great for testing linq to objects/xml/sql. Free download.
What about IncrediBuild? This is a nice distributed build system with visual studio integration.
Clipboard Manager
Maintains your clipboard data through removal of lines, a few other nice items but that one alone makes me happy.
Regionerate
While some have problems with regions I think if you use them, this tool is for you. Automatically region'izes your code into appropriate region blocks. Fully configurable for custom items etc.
VSCommands 2010
from the website:
Latest version supports:
Manage Reference Paths
Prevent accidental Drag & Drop in Solution Explorer
Prevent accidental linked file delete
Apply Fix (automatically fix build errors/warnings)
Open PowerShell
Show Assembly Details
Create Code Contract
Cancel Build when first project fails
Debug Output - custom formatting
Build Output - custom formatting
Search Output - custom formatting
Configure WPF Rendering
Configure Fusion Logs
Configure IE for debugging
Locate Source File
Thumbnails in IDE Navigator
Extended support for xaml, aspx, css, js and html files
Disable Ctrl + Mouse Wheel Zoom
Zoom to Mouse Pointer
Configurability
Attach to local IIS
Copy Full Path
Build Startup Projects
Open Command Prompt
Search Online
Build Statistics
Group linked items
Copy/Paste Reference
Copy/Paste as Link
Collapse Solution
Group items directly from user interface (DependantUpon)
Open In Expression Blend
Locate in Solution
Edit Project File
Edit Solution File
Show All Files
and others, so try it now!
http://trolltech.com/products/qt/">Qt Cross-Platform Application Framework
Qt is a cross-platform application framework for desktop and embedded development. It includes an intuitive API and a rich C++ class library, integrated tools for GUI development and internationalization, and support for Java™ and C++ development
They have a plug-in for Visual Studio that costs a bit of money, but it is worth every penny.
I've been using Visual Assist X for nearly two years now, and I find it so useful I can honestly say that if my employer didn't provide it, I'd have to pay for it myself.
I also use Cool Commands and SlickEdit (the free version), whose File Explorer and Command Spy tools are quite useful.
+1 for Visual Assist
And I will add VLH (Visual Local History) which provides a kind of local source control system. Every time you save a file, the plugin add a copy in the local repository.
ViEmu
vi/vim support inside VS
I found this site called Visual Studio Gallery - it has a lot of visual studio add-ins. I'm browsing it right now and I recommend everyone to visit it.
Consolas font
Free font from MS designed for reading code.
Try MetalScroll!! It's better than Rockscroll
Sonic File Finder for when you have loads of files in your solutions and searching for them in the solution explorer becomes a pain in the wrist.
You might also find DPack interesting. Several tools and enhancements rolled into one neat package.
MZTools is great too.
+1 for CodeRush & Refactor Pro. I've been using CodeRush since its Delphi incarnations, and it's utterly wonderful. The mantra of "Code at the speed of thought" is very close to reality ;)
Microsoft StyleCop provides code style checking for C#, we use it all the time and love it (free)
Axialis IconWorkshop has a Visual Studio add-in which is now free for VS2008 users.
Resharper Yes another vote, because I can't upvote everyone who suggests it :)
Workspace Whiz for C++, I used to live by Workspace Whiz but haven't used it in VS2008 as I hadn't realised there was an update. Will have to give it a try again.
If you're doing C++ coding, hands down Visual Assist.
I love CopySourceAsToHTML as a cool little addin. It's great if you want to copy code blocks for blogging and the like while maintaining your syntax formatting.
I think this is still the url.. you have to do some manual work to set it up with 08.
http://www.jtleigh.com/people/colin/software/CopySourceAsHtml/
For the laptop bound or for those with vi/vim key bindings burned into the brain I would recommend ViEmu.
If you have not tried editing with vi key bindings here is why you may want to try "Why, oh WHY, do those #?#! nutheads use vi?"
AtomineerUtils Pro Documentation - automatic DocXml/Doxygen/JavaDoc/Qt doc-comment generation/updating (similar to GhostDoc, but more powerful & flexible, and supports C#, C++, C++/CLI, C, Java and Visual Basic code).
The style of the generated comments is very configurable, and automatic re-formatting (such as whitespace control and word wrapping) can be optionally applied to keep the comments as readable as possible. It also has many helpers to allow users to read and convert most legacy doc-comments into any of the above formats.
(I'm the author, but I believe the above is an accurate and objective description. This add-in was free when this answer was first added, but to cover the costs of hosting, supporting, and continuing to improve the addin in monthly releases, it is now $10 with a 30-day free trial)
I'm always amazed that more people don't know about/use NDepend - it shows all dependencies at every level of your code, and will even draw pretty box and arrow pictures showing how confused your architecture really is :) Together with TestDriven.Net, I can't imagine working without it any more. Free/cheap.
Related
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.
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Closed 10 years ago.
What are in your opinion the "must have" Visual Studio 2010 extensions?
OData Protocol Visualizer is fine
Solid Softfare Xplorer isn't free, but looks very nice
Just tried NuGet Tools and it's GREAT
Resharper 5.0 is the one I must have. Some others are nice to have as well.
I like the Visual Studio 2010 Pro Power Tools.
Mine are
PowerCommands for Visual Studio 2010 offer so much...
Triple Click - Select line with Triple Click
StructureAdornment - Show scope of code
Go To Definition And Them Editor - As mentioned by Noah
Matt's Visual Studio Color Theme Editor is proving to be really popular (over 10,000 downloads as of 4/18/10).
I've written a couple that are popular; Go To Definition is one of the most popular. If you do a search for my name ("Noah Richards"), you'll find some of the others (triple click to select whole lines, italicize comments, spell checking for strings and comments, and about 7 others).
There's at least one other spell check extension on the gallery, the HTML Spell Checker. It's more mature than the one I wrote but requires Office to work.
I love the Win7 Taskbar Extension, especiall when working with multiple solutions.
http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/0c92dd87-50ac-489e-882b-b99de7624502
I have found the snippets to be useful for various tasks along the way, and so this is a good way to smooth out the maintenance of such snippets:
Snippet Designer
Description Adapted from the website:
A Snippet editor integrated inside of the IDE.
Opening any .snippet file
Uses the native Visual Studio code editor
Mark replacements with a convenient right click menu.
Snippet properties inside the Visual Studio properties window.
A Snippet Explorer tool
A right Click "Export as Snippet" menu option added to C#, VB and XML code editor to send highlighted code directly to the Snippet Editor
When using SVN
Visual SVN
saves a lot of time and it is very handy.
Can I put a plug in for my own extension? :)
PowerGUI Visual Studio Extension - Add PowerShell support to VS2010
I use these extensions:
Productivity Power Tools
Autoscroller
The first one has a lot of options, just enable the options you like. I liked the 'close selected tab' icon on the right corner in Visual studio 2008. You can enable that icon again with this extension. I also like the option to 'pin' tabs.
The autoscroller enables the scrolling in the main window, its also called 'middle-click scrolling'. I missed taht from VS 2008 as well.
Microsoft Silverlight 4 Tools for Visual Studio 2010 is a must have for WPF developers.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=eff8a0da-0a4d-48e8-8366-6ddf2ecad801&displaylang=en
Refactor is a must-have for me. CodeRush is also nice, though one of these years I need to seriously compare it to Resharper. I think most people stick with whichever they first use, as they both take a lot of time to learn.
http://www.devexpress.com/Downloads/Visual_Studio_Add-in/
Update
As pointed out below by Jonathan Allen, this functionality already exists in Visual Studio 2010 Pro Power Tools. Adding this extension, then, would be redundant if you already have that.
There are many ways to solve the posting of formatted code, but I liked the integrated nature of this extension and how you can tweak the resulting HTML:
Code4Blog
Description From Linked Page:
Code4Blog is a Visual Studio 2010 extension that allows to convert any code supported by Visual Studio IDE to HTML format with the same structure and colors. Main purpose of this extension is to prepare a code snippet to be published in rich documents, for example in blog posts, Microsoft Word documents or Help files. Some additional styling could be applied: max width and height of the code block, custom background (per code line), font family and font size, line numbering and others.
I'm using Visual Nunit which is rather nice if you don't have the money to stump up for something like ReSharper. It's only feature (as far as I'm aware) is to allow running nunit tests from within the IDE, which is nice becuase it means you don't have to revert to Nunit GUI every time you want to run some of your unit tests. Also seems pretty stable as of version 1.1.7.
I find the following useful
If you use TFS for ALM Management
Search Work Items for TFS 2010
VS10x Code Map is great for visually navigating classes
SpecFlow for mapping User Stories/Features to automated tests in a way that is readable by steak holders or team members without coding knowledge (Behaviour Driven Development)
And a Spell Checker for strings/comments is always good
I'm also going to plug my own extension - VSFileNav used for quickly finding a file in your solution using wildcards, camel case searches etc.
I developed it because there wasn't anything free (and good - SonicFileFinder was too slow) and used it many times every day.
With the general public release of Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 today, this latest version has created a lot of hype and interest.
Indeed, the opinion I've gauged is that VS 2010 has resolved a great deal of the minor flaws left over from previous versions, as well as added some particularly useful new code editor and project development tools (in particular the Premium/Ultimate versions).
My question here is: what are you favourite new features in VS 2010 that have really got you excited? Or similarly, what are the flaws of VS 2008 that you are most glad to have resolved?
There is a wealth of changes in VS 2010, of course, but these are some of the ones that have interested me most (about which I know!).
Integrated support for F# (with multi-targeting for .NET 2.0 - 4.0)/
Much improved WPF designer. The VS 2008 was more than a bit buggy at times.
Great improvements to the code editor, such as call hierarchy viewing.
A decent add-in framework.
A greatly expanded testing framework (now capable of database testing, for example) in Premium/Ultimate.
Project planning and modelling features in Premium/Ultimate.
If I could request one point/feature per post, I think that would be best, so we could vote them individually.
Visual Studio 2010's true Multi-Monitor Support sounds pretty fantastic.
The feature I'm most looking forward to having a decent play with is actually more .net 4 than visual studio. Parallel Extensions looks like it will be very interesting.
The new, clean web.config should make my managers happy.
"Just change the option in the web.config"
"Where is it?"
"Under 'AppSettings.'"
"Ugh ... there's so much junk in that file."
The built in profiler and historical debugger!
The 'Navigate To' window (Ctrl+,) is fantastic. Eclipse has something similar, and I've always thought Visual Studio needed it. Now if they would just add a 'Collapse All' button to the Solution Explorer...
One-click web publishing will be handy.
Favorite feature? Requiring 4 gigs of RAM to run it's bloat.
I liked many features
Deployment
Gated checkin
Parallel Programming
Faster debugging
Separate debugger for x86 and x64
These are just few.... The more you explore VS2010 the more you will get. Try to go through the videos by microsoft.
Thanks,
Sunil Agarwal
I have been using Visual Studio Express versions. I used to use the full Pro VS 2005. I can't figure out what I am missing with the Express version. What benefits will I get if I buy the full version of VS?
Here you go. This link is vs2005 specific rather than the more-recent 2008, but that's the version you asked about.
Some highlights:
No Mobile Device support
No Object Test Bench
No Extensions
No built-in source control support (they should really change this)
No remote debugging
No Office Development support
No 64-bit compiler support
No Visual Studio Package support
No profiler
No SQL Server debugging integration
Limited deployment options
This list is actually quite lengthy, but with the notable exception of source control they are mostly things you might be able to do without as a single developer, if you really have to. Even the source control can be handled by a file-system-only tool like Tortoise.
Obviously if you're building something like a smart phone app or VS extension it's a non-starter, so you'll need to evaluate what you're really doing. Some of the other missing features like object test bench or the profiler can be partially replaced by third-party tools.
Here's a link to a downloadable Visual Studio 2008 Product Comparison Guide from Microsoft.
The full version of Visual studio supports some extra features and tools.
One of the big differences is more debugging options (You can specify break conditions for debugging, unlike the express version). That feature alone is probably worth it.
You can also install 3rd party addons to add extra featues.
No Resharper.
also, you can add addins like VisualSVN and Resharper into pro. You can't into express.
Matze might be right - MS needs the money - 5K people layed off today, and only 4.7b profit! :(
Depends on what you do. Look at the product matrix to see what features you gain with higher SKUs. Testing, Smart Devices, etc may or may not be relevant for you.
This really just requires a bit of Googling.
You can view a comparison of the paid versions here and an overview of the Express versions here
Have a look at this:
http://blogshare.members.winisp.net/docs/VisualStudio2008-ProductComparison-v1.02-Revisions.xps
If you are doign any sort of professional development with Visual Studio you should buy the Standard edition at a bare minimum. Without it you will loose Source Control integration which IMHO is vital absolute must no questions asked must have for professional development.
I used VS2003 for a while, and am currently using VS2008 C# Express.
Personally, I miss the ability to set a conditional breakpoint instead of simply breaking when a line is hit, and the Threads window.
Support for code version systems is a feature that is real essential.
And Microsoft needs your money to go on implementing new, hot stuff.
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Closed 12 years ago.
In my admittedly somewhat short time as programmer, I have used many development environments on many platforms. Most notably, Eclipse/Linux, XCode/OSX, CLI/editor/Linux, VisualDSP/Blackfin/Windows and MSVC/Windows. (I used each one for several months)
There are neat features in pretty much all of them. But somehow, I just can't find any in MSVC. Then again, so many people really seem to like it, so I am probably missing something here. So please tell me: What is so great about Visual Studio?
Things I like:
Refactoring tools in Eclipse
Build error highlighting in XCode and Eclipse
Edit-all-in-Scope in XCode
Profiler in XCode
Flexibility of Eclipse and CLI/editor
Data plotting in VisualDSP
Things I don't like
Build error display in MSVC (not highlighted in code)
Honestly, this is not meant to be a rant. Of course I am a Mac-head and biased as hell, but I have to use MSVC on the job, so I really want to like it.
The best thing about visual studio is that it's the host application for Resharper ;)
It depends from programmer to programmer. I preferably like Visual Studio because:
(1) Development is much faster as compared to other IDEs.
(2) Intelli-Sense concept works best in Visual Studio. In some IDEs I noted that the menu opens when you pressed the . and moved ahead. And also the concept of Intelli-Sense started with Visual Studio. I am sorry for hurting if I am wrong.
(3) I use Aptana Studio for PHP development. It is a great IDE as it is built on Eclipse, but still I am able to work faster, specially while working on HTML files, using Visual Studio than in Aptana. But again, Aptana also has some very neat features.
(4) I find debugging a .NET application using Visual Studio much easier than working with other IDEs.
IMHO, Visual Studio has one of the best debuggers in the business. Much easier to use than the many graphical frontends to gdb out there.
Visual Studio is more integrated with its supported languages than anything I have ever experienced (I've been around the block--Aptana, Eclipse, Zend Studio, etc.).
Add ReSharper to the mix, and I'm in heaven.
What I like is the:
Intellisense (code-comletion features)
In-environment documentation
ReSharper is a plug-in which enhances these things and adds some more advanced features like large-scale refactoring, killer object discovery features, code validation against recommended standards (which you can change to fit your own needs).
After close to 10 years using and loving Visual Studio up to version 2008, I have been doing some Java development in Eclipse for a few months and I am quite surprised that, in my opinion, Eclipse is a much more advanced IDE. I just miss a lot of features when I go back to VS.
Perhaps the people that think VS is the best haven't used any other modern IDE lately.
I had the same question myself, since everyone seems to love Studio (and I personally think it's not even close to Eclipse's abilities).
After a lot of reading, I came to the (possibly wrong?) conclusion that: Visual Studio is great for .net languages, but Visual Studio for C/C++ is just not close to as good.
Almost everyone who speaks so highly of Visual Studio is coming from a .net background, and a lot of the wonderful things they keep talking about, I just couldn't find when working on C++.
This, btw, makes a lot of sense: the main effort of Microsoft is to push .net forward, and the tight integration with Studio makes it a very powerful IDE (the same way Eclipse is great for Java development).
If you are using Visual Studio for C or C++ programming, you should really look into Visual Assist X. It adds refactoring and better syntax highlighting and a few extra things.
If you are using Subversion for version-control, you should also look into VisualSVN (best) or AnkhSvn (free).
With those add-ons you might find Visual Studio more to your liking.
'Out of the box', I can write a program without having to go through all the hooplah of installing CDT (or whatever other tools). This is a real PITA for Ubuntu and not much better on windows. (The updates never seem to work right, there are always stupid package incompatibility problems, or special install steps).
The environment 'feels' natural to windows and non-clunky, and that lack of awkwardness counts a lot toward productivity. Shortcuts are common with other windows apps, window behavior is the same, etc.
VS is also not cluttered by a crapload of windows when you open a project. I'm sure that there are ways to save the perspectives in Eclipse so you don't have to do this every time, but it is an extra step.
Visual Studio isn't a great IDE at all - I discovered that when I started C# development.
With Resharper it's pretty nice, with features present in better IDEs like Eclipse andIntelliJ IDEA.
I have no idea why Microsoft doesn't just buy JetBrains and merges Resharper into Visual Studio.
Visual Studio Team System Data Base Edition - all the tools you need: code editor with designer, Source Control, Team View and , what's best - Data Base deployment!
Probably someone else already gave this answer, but:
DEBUGGING Tools
That's it. Simple as that. Point me to one tool that can debug code as fully as VS can, and I'd marry it (yes, I'm married to VS). When you are targeting .Net, things get even better.
Which one did you use first?
From someone who has been developing since...uhm...punching holes in cards and has seen IDEs evolve I actually like using Visual Studio, but I like other ones too. I find Visual Studio is best with Microsoft specific languages such as VB or C#, and it has many of the features comparable to the points you say you like in others.
I do find that I need time to get used to a new IDE because since I use VS a lot, I'm usually looking for the VS way to do something. So maybe it's just the case of giving it time. And if you don't like it try out the customisations to change it or turn it off.
I dare say that VS introduced some ideas that other IDEs adopted and vice versa.
My top favourite thing is the intelli-sense that never seemed too obtrusive compared to other IDEs, and for C# VS 2003 seemed to get a lot clever at predicting what I wanted to type.
It certainly is not an IDE to despise.
VS is getting better from version to version, with 3rd party tools like resharper it is as good as the other tools. (sames goes to profiling.. the 3rd parties are pretty good).
basically - if you coding dot net - this is the tool, and if you're coding java - you have the others...
so the real question - which framework you like better, and not which IDE....
.... and if you are only using good old c++ I think which ever tool you're used to...
I used to compile c++ on borland on dos and I was happy :-)
I use both Delphi and Visual Studio. While I prefer Delphi (for a lot of reasons), there are some things that Visual Studio does better.
The code editor works better, making writing code smoother, and therefore faster.
The help. It's faster, returns more relevant results and is better integrated into IDE.
It's more of a .Net thing than Visual Studio, but I'm really liking ASP.Net, so I'd have to call that another win for VS.
And for bonus points, I'm also a big fan of Delphi Prism, which is hosted in Visual Studio.
So, if you're writing code for Windows, there are a lot of things to like in the Visual Studio IDE.
The debugger (I primarily use C++). I make sure my projects work in Visual Studio all along, even if my team in my job isn't supporting it, because it always saves our hide in the end. Otherwise its non-standard solution/project system is somewhat annoying.
Also, for someone accustomed to using VS, Eclipse is far too sluggish. It's like an ice hockey fan trying to become a soccer fan. It can happen, but it's not easy.
I tried using VS2010 for working on a Great Plains / eConnect project, and it kept crashing on me.
I would like to like this IDE, but I can't even use it right now. VS2010 has the featureset I need to work on the above (with the newest versions).
I like VS because it is the more responsive one (runs circles around Eclipse for instance). I'm still using 2005 though and not looking forward to the upgrade to 2010 (we skip every other release, so not 2003 and no 2008 here).