What features would you most like to see in Visual Studio 2010?

Question

One thing Delphi does that is very useful is retaining multiple historical versions of modified files. This way I can easily make wholesale changes without checking code into repository every 10 minutes without fear that I can easily go back a step.

Answer 1

I would love to see better support for Silverlight design support...

and it would be great if the Database version could support Oracle instead of just SQL Server and DB2.

Answer 2

Nothing, I'm actually pretty happy with Visual Studio 2008. And, I'd like to go a little longer without purchasing a whole new version of Visual Studio this time around.

And, if you want better Silverlight support, it should be release as a new version of the Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio.

Answer 3

Visual Basic 6.0

Answer 4

Dynamic language support... code completion in Iron Python and Iron Ruby, to the extent allowed by those languages, would be so cool!

Answer 5

Would have to say not that much, overall, 2008 is the best one yet. Some little things that would help:

• native svn integration
• better ftp management

Answer 6

I'd like it if I could highlight a set of private variables, right click and refactor and all of the selected variables get encapsulated into properties. Right now only the first variable gets refactored.

Answer 7

Personally, I'd like to see the re-inclusion of the old VC6 C++ ClassWizard which was so much more productive than the grotty tools that replaced it. Can't see it happening though.

Answer 8

I haven't tried VS2008 (we still use 2005) but personally I don't really need any new IDE features, what I really need is a compiler that runs faster (esp C++ code).

Working on a big solution set with many interdependent projects and lacking the time to recode the structure of it, building the project wastes alot of my day.

As it were a faster compiler would save me more time then any neat features of the IDE currently do anyway.

To Clarify we use MSBUILD for a full rebuild, only really compile from the IDE to check for compile errors (many of the projects share headers so we need to rebuild the lot quite often).

Answer 9

Good designers for WPF and Silverlight, more functionality that currently must be provided by (quite costly) third party tools like Resharper.

Answer 10

FixBugs button?

Hehe. I guess svn/trac integration. Like that will happen.

Answer 11

Better unit testing support.

Answer 12

I would like to have Intellisense work for C# in the same way as it does for VB - ie. filtering the list down so that you only get everything beginning with the letters you have typed - makes it easier to find the property/method/event etc.. you are looking for.

Answer 13

CommonLisp.net support

Answer 14

I'd like to be able to filter Intellisense by properties, events, methods etc (rather than all together).

I'm not sure if this is feasible, but it would be a time saver especially when I'm looking only at events (for example).

Answer 15

Silverlight design support.

(And I don't need better historical file support the way I use Perforce / source control).

Answer 16

Some love for good old C++. Better intellisense, refactoring etc.

Answer 17

At least all the features of resharper included. It is a shame that Visual Studio, a great tool, doesn't do much for developer productivity when coding. C# is becoming even more a language that considers these factors, but the environment is too much incomplete, miles away from the language potential to ease the job of programmers, let us focus on what is important.

Answer 18

• Intellisense for SQL built-in
• More refactorings (e.g., create similar member)

Answer 19

Better integration with javascript ...

Answer 20

API/command line/scripting support for version numbers so that we can manipulate those a lot easier during a build. Ability to use multiple sources to build the number.

For example, in a scheme of A.B.C.D, I want to have A and B fixed a.b until I manually change that, then get c somehow - but MSDev should provide one of a few auto increments for that, and d can possibly be obtained from a revision in source control.

EDIT: to make it easier to read:

Version = A.B.C.D where:

• A is fixed in source file somewhere (manual editing)
• B is fixed in source file somewhere (manual editing)
• C can be auto incremented according to one of a few rule sets - and the developers can add schemes
• D same as C but also able to get form another source - like the revision of SVN or some other place.

In general I want more flexibility and I don;t want to have to build all sorts of hacks to do manipulation of version numbering.

Answer 21

Integration (or bundling) of Expression Blend. Let's face it: If you do WPF, you almost need Blend for a proper UI.

Answer 22

I would like better support for comparing code, both from source control and two files which you specify. The tools are out there in many SVN clients but a inbuilt comparison and management right inside VS would rock

Answer 23

I would like to see a super-fast "Find Type/Symbol/File" feature similar to ReSharper.

Answer 24

I love the "Add References" dialog to come up near-instantly instead of the the eternity it seems to take.

Answer 25

Intellisense for C++ that works at least 95% of the time (as opposed to the 60% or so at present).

Compiler that runs faster than continental drift.

General performance and stability improvements. 2008 is better than 2005, but still needs work.

Ability to quickly swap between different window layouts. I tend to pop many of the windows out, but it likes to forget this sometimes, and it'd be nice to be able to snap them back in again easily.

Answer 26

smarter indentation of pasted code

Answer 27

Better JavaScript intellisense, particularly in separate JS files. Has anyone else noticed that when you're coding up a client script control that there is no intellisense for that control other than the methods above the current line of code?

I'd like to have the private memebers shown, would make getters and setters a lot easier to code up

Answer 28

Higlight macthing parenthesis, brackets etc in red

foreach (var item in collection)
{
}

Answer 29

Templates available via the "find templates online" icon when creating a project. Maybe it's just me using 2008 express, but for kicks I've tried to see what other templates exist, and always get nada (had to create a windows service template myself).

Answer 30

Cross platform support. (You know... Something other than Windows). (And before this gets modded down... Remember that Microsoft claims that .NET is language and platform independant).

Answer 31

The feature I would most like to see is PERFORMANCE.

VS2008 takes upwards of 30 seconds to load on my core2-quad with 4gigs of ram. It then takes a minute or so to open a medium-sized project (15 or so csproj files) and isn't usable until the disk has finished thrashing about a minute later. It routinely uses upwards of 500 megs of RAM.

This is ridiculous!

Answer 32

Remove unused usings PROJECTWIDE.

Answer 33

I would love to see easier ways to version your database. It might not be a function of VS2010 but it would be lovely to version your database as with the ruby on rails + rake commands (db:migrate). Now it is hard to effectivily share your database via SVN, had to take a look at diffent questions on this site to get the answer how to do it.

Answer 34

Get rid of the dataset designer.

Answer 35

I havn't tried the VS2010 beta yet but at the top of my wishlist

Responsiveness

• Fast startup
• Fast exit
• Fast designer startup
• Fast add refs dialog

Answer 36

In classic stack overflow fashion, my answer is combination of all the answers I think are best here so far, plus a little bit of extra input of my own (at the end):

• Some love for good old C++. Better intellisense, refactoring etc. [unknown (yahoo)]
• I would like to have Intellisense work for C# in the same way as it does for VB - ie. filtering the list down so that you only get everything beginning with the letters you have typed - makes it easier to find the property/method/event etc.. you are looking for. [Ebircsa]
• I love the "Add References" dialog to come up near-instantly instead of the the eternity it seems to take. [danswain]
• I'd like it if I could highlight a set of private variables, right click and refactor and all of the selected variables get encapsulated into properties. Right now only the first variable gets refactored. [Giovanni Galbo]
• I'd like to be able to filter Intellisense by properties, events, methods etc (rather than all together). [Rob Sanders]
• Intellisense for C++ that works at least 95% of the time (as opposed to the 60% or so at present). [Peter]
• At least all the features of resharper included. [Victor Rodrigues]
• I would like better support for comparing code, both from source control and two files which you specify. [Damien]
• Smarter indentation of pasted code. [Hazar]
• The ability to compile against more than one c-runtime library version (ie, support compiling against old runtime libraries much in the same way that you can now compile against different .NET versions in VS2008).
• Remember my window layouts when I resize my VS screen. I have 2 monitors, and I often stretch the outer VS window to fill both monitors. I then size the VS components inside that window in a certain way so that they are partitioned to one monitor or the other. However, if you lock then unlock your screen, visual studio will slightly alter the size of some of these components. Not a lot, just enough to make the components bleed over onto the other screen by 100 pixels or so.

Answer 37

I'd like to see first class support for dynamic languages like IronRuby and IronPython out of the box.

Answer 38

Given an interface or parent class, I'd like to be able to see all other classes that implement/extend it - if I remember correctly, Eclipse can do this. "Find All References" kind of does this, but it often brings in other noise as well.