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398

answers:

9

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.

+7  A: 

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.

Simon P Stevens
Ah yes, I almost forgot about that. I tried out the CTP, and it was superb to use.
Noldorin
I had no idea this was part of .NET 4 -- this looks great!
Pandincus
+2  A: 

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."

Pandincus
Probably not my most desired feature, but it is undoubtedly a nice one.
Noldorin
+9  A: 

Visual Studio 2010's true Multi-Monitor Support sounds pretty fantastic.

Donut
Ohh yeah, me too. That will be really nice.
Simon P Stevens
Visual Studio 2008 already allows to put all the windows that are not source code outside the main window. And you can have as many 'source windows' groups as you want, to display several source files at the same time, albeit all inside the main window...
Xavier Nodet
@Xavier: yes, but those are tool style windows which can't be maximised, so they end up jumping around a bit and are a general pain. true multi monitor support would be nice.
Simon P Stevens
It would be even better if those "out of the main window" windows could be docked next to eachother. I've 3 monitors and aranging all these windows is still a hassle... But it is a LOT better than 2008 though :)
Jeroen Landheer
+1  A: 

One-click web publishing will be handy.

harriyott
+1  A: 

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...

Jason
Lets see if this can compete with the Resharper GoTo... features
ollifant
A: 

Favorite feature? Requiring 4 gigs of RAM to run it's bloat.

Steven Hoff
You can enjoy developing in DOS to conserve your RAM, I'll make use of the improvements in computing speeds to make developing software easier.
vanja.
Well said, vanja. Though unless you have a few dozen add-ins installed, VS is most likely not going to take more than 1GB at *most*.
Noldorin
+2  A: 

The built in profiler and historical debugger!

vanja.
A: 

I have listed most of the features in my blog http://rajsoftware.wordpress.com/2010/03/25/vs-2010-ide-enhancements-quick-start/

Raj Aththanayake
A: 

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

Sunil Agarwal