What is so great about Visual Studio?

Question

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.

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

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).

Answer 3

The best thing about visual studio is that it's the host application for Resharper ;)

Answer 4

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.

Answer 5

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.

Answer 6

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 :-)

Answer 7

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).

Answer 8

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.

Answer 9

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).

Answer 10

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.

Answer 11

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.

Answer 12

'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.

Answer 13

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.

Answer 14

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).

Answer 15

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!

Answer 16

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.

Answer 17

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.