What are some advantages available in Visual Studio 2008 that I can bring up to my boss so I can convince him to upgrade from 2005? My main goal is to use MVC, but I need some good reasons why this would be better than what we have now.
A:
much better javascript support is one, javascript debugging and code completion.
John Boker
2008-09-05 15:30:21
+2
A:
One thing to be careful with, if you do VC++ development. Upgrading the VS version will cause your code to start linking to a newer version of the C++ runtime. We ran into a problem upgrading from 2k3 to 2k5, not realizing we needed to change the version of the runtime we distributed with our app. Just a heads up, in case you run into the same problem we did. :)
Herms
2008-09-05 15:33:38
+2
A:
You can upgrade and still target .NET 2.0 so you can work in 2.0, 3.0 and 3.5 all within VS 2008.
Javascript intellisense, built in unit testing.
just to name a few.
RedWolves
2008-09-05 15:36:21
+2
A:
The key new features are things like LINQ and Windows Presentation Foundation support.
VS 2008 also has multi-targeting support so you can target different .NET runtime versions - this is very useful as it means that you don't necessarily have to upgrade clients from .NET v2 just because you've upgraded Visual Studio.
Intellisense is improved. VS 2008 may use more resources than VS 2005 but I feel that's somewhat inevitable as features are added.
Robin M
2008-09-05 15:37:38
+4
A:
The JavaScript Intellisense is enough of an enhancement in and of itself. Beyond that, you could mention the reasons for switching to MVC and the overall performance improvements and new features from Visual Studio. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb386063.aspx
Finally, you could mention the new language features in .NET 3.0 / 3.5 -- Such as Linq to SQL, etc. All-in-All the switch was very beneficial for the team I'm on.
Ryan Lanciaux
2008-09-05 15:39:58
+2
A:
The web development GUI is AWESOME. They took all the great CSS support and features in Expression Web and put that as the editor you use when creating web pages. You can have split HTML/UI code and it is just a lot better.
After working with Expression Web a bit to do my initial layouts and falling in love with it, I was chomping at the bit to get VS2K8 to get those features built in.
Dillie-O
2008-09-05 15:41:03
A:
Well, if you're in an organization like mine, there's nothing you can do until the Framework team upgrades the enterprise libraries and all the important apps have been migrated.
So you can skip all the benefits provided in VS2008 - like multi-targeting .net 2.0, 3.0, and 3.5. Don't bother mentioning LINQ and automatic properties in the 3.5 framework (only supported by 2008). Ditto for WCF returning JSON objects and the integrated WPF designer.
Finally, don't bother directing your boss to Microsoft case studies where companies have reduced code size by 50% or more and shortend development times by an equal amount by moving to 3.5 and VS2008.
Dan Shield
2008-09-05 15:49:09
Why can't you use VS2008 and target .NET 2.0? Do you mean your framework is still on 1.1?
John Saunders
2009-04-03 15:30:56
There were some apps that were based on the 1.1 framework, but I think they have all been migrated to 2.0 now. The new position is that VS2008 can be deployed, but there will be a Windows policy restricting the use of the 3.5 framework. It's been 7 months, but I guess that's a start. :)
Dan Shield
2009-04-05 02:05:09
+1
A:
Also, it just seems way faster than 2005; especially on the designer page.
Joel Lanciaux
2008-09-05 17:23:45
+1
A:
Bosses want to hear about cost in time, cost of resources, end-user appreciation and cost of loosing his own job.
Tell him the time-saving features in VS2008 (eg: web app testability comes closer to the pages => less errors => less time to market.
Tell him that MS new tooling for VS2005 and almost practically grinding to a halt (and that is true). This is a signal for eventually, dropping support. Managers don't like that.
Tell him that investing in a newer more stable product gives you a longer time before it gets obsolete. Obsolete means he can't find people to support the technology and higher cost of ownership.
If it fails, suggest that the guys may think he's a dork.
Remember to weave in the core reasons whereever you can, that is:
"I plan to leverage the new technology in MVC pages and they're quicker to develop than webforms and perform faster for end-users. And, that's not supported with VS 2005". Then proceed to list the advantages in MVC.
Other pertinent reasons are: Linq and other language features that is not supported in C#2.0 (vs2005). This improves db access.
Pita.O
2009-03-22 18:46:35
A:
Visual Studio 2008 can target .NET 2.0, 3.0 or 3.5. You don't have to make any changes to your .NET 2.0 code in order to use it in the VS 2008 IDE.
The other feature of 2008 that I haven't heard mentioned yet is the new XML editor. It's much better in my opinion, especially in the way that it allows me to use multiple schemas, and still provides intellisense. They've also added a schema browser window in VS2008 SP1.
John Saunders
2009-04-03 15:33:17
A:
New language features (especially lambdas) that you can still use while targeting .NET 2.0. LINQ and HashSet<T> are very nice, but only available in .NET 3.5, unless you roll your own.
Chris Doggett
2009-04-03 16:06:55
A:
It's also 3 better than 2005. Sometimes that's all a manager needs to here.
Marc Bernier
2009-04-03 17:00:35
A:
You might want to refer the article 22 New Features of Visual Studio 2008 for .NET Professionals
Dutt
2009-12-22 16:20:01