What's the compelling reason to upgrade to Visual Studio 2010 from VS2008?

Question

Are there new features in Visual Studio 2010 that are must-haves? If so, which ones?

For me, the big draws for VS2008 as compared to VS2005 were LINQ, .NET Framework multitargeting, WCF (REST + Syndication), and general devenv.exe reliability. Granted, some of these features are framework things, and not tool things. For the purposes of this discussion, I'm willing to combine them into one bucket.

What is the list of must-have features for VS2010 versus VS2008? Are there any? I am particularly interested in C#.

Update: I know how to google, so I can get the official list from Microsoft. I guess what I really wanted was, the assessment from people using it, as to which things are really notable. Microsoft went on for 3 pages about 2008/3.5 features, and many people sort of boiled it down to LINQ, and a few other things. What is that short list for VS2010?

Summary so far, what people think is cool or compelling:

• Visual Studio engine

  • multi-monitor support
  • new extensibility model
  • based on WPF, prettier and more usable
  • new TFS stuff, incl automated test tools
  • parallel debugging

• .NET Framework

  • parallel extensions for .NET

• C# 4.0

  • generic variance
  • optional and named params
  • easier interop with non-managed environments, like COM or Javascript

• VB 10.0

  • collection and array literals / initializers
  • automatic properties
  • anonymous methods / statement lambdas

I read up on these at Zander's blog. He described these and other features. Nobody on this list said anything about:

• Visual Studio engine

  • F# support
  • Javascript code-completion
  • JQuery is now included
  • UML
  • better Sharepoint capabilities

• C++

  • moves to msbuild project files

Answer 1

Jason Zander, the Visual Studio Developer Division General Manager, has a blog. You should read it... (There are many changes to how projects are handled, to the editor, and to various language-specific features in both - whether these make it a compelling upgrade for you... is something only you can answer)

Answer 2

As a guy who does a lot of interop, I cannot wait for the "interop done right" features of 4.0. Here's a great talk on some of the new features from PDC.

Answer 3

The support for parallel programming designed for multi-core systems is a big one for me!

-JFV

Answer 4

I like the optional and named parameters as well as the co/contra-variance stuff

http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/mike+ormond/C-40-New-Features-Optional-Parameters/ http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/Going+Deep/Inside-C-40-dynamic-type-optional-parameters-more-COM-friendly/

Answer 5

The new extensibility model is great. We should see a plethora of new, lighter-weight Visual Studio plugins with 2010.

Scott Guthrie demonstrates that in the PDC 2008 Keynote: http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/KYN02/

Answer 6

Visual Basic Collection and Array Literals.

They are super awesome.

(disclaimer: I wrote that feature, so I'm a little biased)

Answer 7

For me it is the new features that ship with the tester edition and TFS 2010, such as the new automated testing tools.

Answer 8

While the new features of C# may not seem as impressive compared to LINQ - variance is really nice and useful.

The library and runtime has a lot of new features. Personally I find the parallel library to be the most interesting. The demos and code I have seen so far are really impressive and the added debugging support in VS2010 for tasks etc. makes for a nice package.

The VS extensibility model has been changed as well and it allows for some pretty cool features and it seems much more accessible than the current model.

Answer 9

Being stuck using VB.NET, I'm so happy to see automatic properties and inline subs.

Answer 10

General

• Supposed to finally get an XML Schema designer back (lost it in 2008 from 2005)

VB

• Removal of line continuation characters in many situations
• Real anon delegates in VB (inline sub()s, not just expressions)

line continuation is my #1 reason to upgrade, since we use VB 75% here.

Answer 11

I would upgrade because of the new web application deployment features.

Answer 12

I kept hearing about a "black box" debugging (or historical debugging) that would be included in 2010 version. That's what i'm interested in. Is it there?

Answer 13

Support for at least some of the new C++0X features:

• lambdas, auto, static_assert
• r-value references
• decltype

For me, the lambdas and r-value references are almost compelling enough on their own. The multi-monitor support is the other thing that I can see being the most useful.

Answer 14

• Better Workflow Foundation tooling and design
• WS-Discovery Support in WCF

Answer 15

• WPF Designer is up to par with the WinForms designer in VS2010. The WPF designer in VS2008 is average at best.
• ASP.NET MVC baked in
• Ability to write rich extensions to the Visual Studio env using MEF - I think this opens the door to an even richer set of VS extensions (and easier path for internal type extensions instead of waiting for a vendor to provide on)

Answer 16

Code Contracts. The fact that they're statically checked makes them 100x better than asserts and other argument guards to me.

The only thing is I wish C# 4 had a special syntax for it to hide the library calls.

Answer 17

Newly implemented C++ intellisense.

I played with it a little and it looks much better than VS2008 and it can only improve until the release.

Answer 18

MSVC 2010 is getting rid of the side-by-side configuration model and going back to where you can just distribute the runtime dlls alongside the exe. I am pretty excited about that.

Answer 19

Following beta 2 announcements and release, many things to ponder.

Visual Studio product line is completely revamped. 3 SKUs (excluding express editions): Professional, Premium, and Ultimate. Premium includes many features that used to be team system edition features. Ultimate is where the "new" team system features will go, such as UML.

Premium VS will come with the Premium subscription. Slight price increase from the old Professional VS + Premium subscription.

All VS subscriptions will have TFS, which will now run on client systems (Win 7 and Vista)! If you're looking for a compelling reason to upgrade, TFS may be enough all by itself.

Answer 20

I like it that Silverlight 3 is in the box (runtime, SDK, tools), you don't have to install anything extra.

Call Hierarchy feature is quite nice too ;)

I also like Generate From Usage, Highlight References, Navigate To.

Answer 21

F# is definitely something to watch (and explore) in VS2010. It's going to be a paradigm shift for many OOP (Object Oriented Programming) programmers, in much the same way that OOP was a paradigm shift for the people steeped in the "structured programming" approaches of the 1980s and '90s.

The draw for F# will be much the same that OOP had over "structured programming": do more with less code while making your code more stable at the same time.

Answer 22

Built-in project templates for SharePoint 2010 features, webparts and solutions. One-click deployment to SharePoint 2010

Combined with the fact that it is possible to install SharePoint 2010 on a developer Vista/Windows 7 environment this will greatly speed up SharePoint development

Answer 23

Unit testing and visual designer for Silverlight. That's what made me to take the decision of installing beta 2, even though generally I don't like to rely too much in betas.

Answer 24

Note that Visual Studio 2010, with its WPF rewrite, dropped the MDI option for documents. Tabs are the only way now, barring some macro magic.

This is the only big regression in functionality I've noticed yet.

Answer 25

I'd be interested in hearing what you think about the code visualization and exploration tools in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate such as creating sequence, dependency graphs, and layer diagrams from code and using Architecture Explorer to browse and explore your solution. VS 2010 also supports UML class, sequence, component, use case, and activity diagrams for software design. You'll also be able to link UML diagrams to Team Foundation work items and extend your UML models.

I've posted more links on my profile for more info.

Answer 26

Auto-Start for web applications - the ability to automatically startup and proactively initialize a web application without having to wait for an external client to hit the web server.

Box select / Multi-line editing - Allows you edit multiple lines of code at once.

Answer 27

IntelliTrace (called "historical debugging")
--> Going back in time during a debugging session.

Not to confound with the Stacktrace.
--> Going back in the call hierarchy.

IntelliTrace: Like watching a movie and rewinding back to see what happened (what caused an exception)

MSDN info here
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd264915(VS.100).aspx

Personal plug: Checkout slide 61 here
http://www.slideshare.net/PeterGfader/testing-with-vs2010-a-bugs-life

Answer 28

Add Reference dialog doesn't take six hundred million years to open.

File>New New Item > Class generates public class by default.

Answer 29

I have listed most of the features in my blog access http://rajsoftware.com/ See ASP.NET links.

Answer 30

I just wrote up a blog post that kinda discusses a little of this (Which Visual Studio 2010 Edition Do I Buy?) but the Microsoft Marketing website is starting to have some really good information about the features that are beneficial to you if you were to upgrade to 2010.

Answer 31

Easy:

• F#.

• Parallel programming.

:-)

Answer 32

Some new features in Visual studio 2010.

link text

Answer 33

As I am not a pro developer, so i haven't explored it deeply. I tried my hands on VS2010 immediately after its beta release. I found it more cooler & smarter than its ancestor. I like the following features that every dev must have experienced:

1. Highlighting References : all instances of that symbol are highlighted 
                             in the document.

2. Intelligent Intellisense, searches on as you type. Even searches in any part 
                             of the reference. also CTRL+ALT+SPACEBAR to toggle 
                             between completion mode and suggestion mode 
                            (also in earlier version CTRL+SPACEBAR).
3. The new ClientIDMode() property  in ASP.Net 4
4. ASP.Net Chart tools, that was lacking by default in VS2008
5. Multi monitor support
6. The most important is quick reference adding. In earlier version you have to 
    wait for 1-2 minutes for add reference dialog to appear,but in this within 
    2-3 secs. Really optimized one. 

Answer 34

not sure multi-monitor support is a selling point. haven't we already been using ULTRAMON for years?

Answer 35

So, obviously, there are a ton of new features but I have a few of my favorite things in the IDE listed here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/zainnab/archive/tags/vs2010+new+features/

They range from seriously cool (WPF Tree Visualizer, Zero-Length Box Selection, Call Hierarchy) to the more mundane (remove projects from project list); but they all, in my opinion, make a compelling argument to upgrade is you are using any version of the CLR from 2.0 to 4.0 -- just my .02 :)

Answer 36

• Co- and contravariance in delegates and generic classes (finally... I wonder what the people at MS thought when they left that out?)

• Fully usable XamlReader - class (which is VERY important for what I'm doing)

• Better WF (MUCH better)

• WCF supports now gzip (I know, it's a facepalm that MS only brought us that in 4.0, but hey... it's here now!)

• Memory mapped files (yay!!!)