Visual Studio

Microsoft announces Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0

Paul Mah — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 01:21:02 -0400

Microsoft has announced the next version of its flagship Visual Studio tools as Visual Studio 2010. It will be tied to the next iteration of the .NET Framework, or version 4.0. The new roundup will focus on developer experience and core architecture improvements, as well as what Microsoft calls targeted experiences for specific application types. Essentially, the suite will support the latest platforms spanning clients, servers, devices and services. No actual date was given for the new technologies planned by Microsoft, except a confirmation that its name does imply the time frame of its availability. Microsoft has been known to release products well before the year in the product names.

For more about Microsoft's Visual Studio 2010:
- check out this article from eWeek

Cisco leans towards open source

Paul Mah — Tue, 27 May 2008 03:45:17 -0400

Cisco Systems has announced a new messaging protocol called Etch, designed to allow developers to integrate client/server applications without the overhead common to traditional protocols such as SOAP. It also was created to be language, platform and transport agnostic. Initial release will support both C# and Java, with implementations for Ruby, Python and C expected to be available in the near future. Integration into Microsoft's Visual Studio or the Eclipse project will be included.

The hidden gem in the announcement is that Etch will be open-sourced, though Cisco is still trying to decide which license to use. Coming from Cisco, this could well herald a new wave of open source projects spearheaded by traditional proprietary-systems vendors.

For more on Cisco's new messaging protocol:
- check out this CIO.com article

Microsoft releases SP1 betas for Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5

Paul Mah — Tue, 13 May 2008 06:41:02 -0400

The first beta release of SP1 for Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 have been released by Microsoft. They have been available for download from Microsoft's Developer Network (MSDN) site since May 12. Some key improvements in SP1 for Visual Studio 2008 appear to be better performance in the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and new components for Visual Basic and Visual C++. The .NET Framework 3.5, on the other hand, features better start-up performance, as well as improvements pertaining to web development (such as improved AJAX support). Microsoft declined to furnish any target date for the final release of SP1 for both Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5.

For more on the service packs:
- check out the ZDNet article