Visual Studio 2008

[Mabrito]

I am wondering if upgrading to Visual Studio 2008 from 2005 is worth it. With the recent announcement of Microsoft giving away developers software for free to students, its listed on there. Is .NET 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008 worth it?

 

[bdowden]

In my opinion Microsoft has added a lot of great features into VS 2008. There's the nice multi-targeting feature which allows you to compile to target either 2.0, 3.0, or 3.5 which is great if you're not ready to move to 3.5.

There's a bunch of little things in 2008 that are great. There's a new feature that automatically removes unused "using" statements (if you're using C# that is) and automatically sorts them in alphabetical order. It may not seem like much, but it cleans up the code, IMHO.

.NET 3.5 adds a LOT of functionality to the previous framework. LINQ is amazing; it simplifies searching through collections, parsing XML, etc. Extension methods are also nice; they're similar to the open classes that Ruby has. If you create an extension method for an interface, let's say IList<T>, all objects that implement IList<T> will be able to access that method (as long as you have the appropriate references). This allows you to "add methods" to classes that you usually wouldn't be able to, such as base .NET classes like String and Int32.

There's also some nice syntactical sugar that 3.5 adds. Speaking from a C# standpoint, automatic properties are nice. Instead of your basic:

private string someString;
public string SomeString
{
[INDENT]get
{
[INDENT]return someString;[/INDENT]
}
set
{
[INDENT]someString = value;[/INDENT]
}[/INDENT]
}

you can simple use

public string SomeString { get; set; }

The compiler sees this and automatically puts the private member variable into your class. As long as you do not have any logic in your getter/setter, you can use the automatic properties.

There's also the object initializers and collection initializers, but I think I've droaned on long enough. In my opinion you should move to 2008 even if you stay with .Net 2.0 for now. When you want to upgrade, it's a simple flip of a bit.

 

[Earp]

We upgraded to 2008 almost as soon as it was released, and I can't say it was worth it (although with MSDN it didn't cost us anything). Basically, 2008 gets you LINQ and a few other things. If I was starting a new project, I'd definately be looking at LINQ, but we solved most of the problems LINQ does with code generation a couple of years ago.

The only thing I noticed with 2008 is that my pc needs more RAM (and I have 2GB). It seems that every time I upgrade Visual Studio, I need to double the RAM.

 

[pxc]

The only thing I noticed with 2008 is that my pc needs more RAM (and I have 2GB). It seems that every time I upgrade Visual Studio, I need to double the RAM.

VS 2003 does seem lightweight compared to 2005 and 2008. At work I alternate between 2003 and 2005 depending on what I'm working on.

I was running VS2008 in a VM when it came out. It was very usable on a 2GB machine. I'm spoiled at home so it's hard to judge what is really slow.

 

[mikeblas]

VS 2003 does seem lightweight compared to 2005 and 2008.

Try VC++ 6, which didn't have any of the managed code foolishness.

 

[modi123]

yup.. we've moved to 2008 and enjoy it.. the work flow addons, LINQ, and a few other tweaks are great.. the only thing we are waiting on is server 2008 so we can migrate our reporting service reports.. personally I'll probably be still running 2k5 at home.. there's not a pressing need to upgrade there yet.

 

[pxc]

Try VC++ 6, which didn't have any of the managed code foolishness.

I know, it loads and runs smoothly on even low end hardware. I don't use it at work and I haven't touched it at home since I upgraded to Vista.

I do like managed code, but MS really needs to get rid of the loading sluggishness of the newer IDEs. It's almost as bad as Eclipse.

 

[rmw[m]arine]

2008 is definitely a very worthy upgrade to 2005...I still use both though depending on what I'm trying to accomplish...

 

[Arainach]

Try VC++ 6, which didn't have any of the managed code foolishness.

Except that VC6 was arguably the worst C++ compiler I've ever used. You didn't even have to get into that complex of code (I'm talking just the plain C++ spec here), and everything else - Dev-C++, gcc, IBM's compilers - would compile it just fine and VC6 would just choke. The .NET C++ compilers have been excellent and are some of the best especially in terms of giving good error messages, but I can't stand VC6.

I'm running 2008 on my desktop and it's nice, but not too different from 2005. For some reason the installer barfs on my laptop (2-hour old Vista Business install) with something about missing prereqs, but chances are in the morning it'll work just fine.

 

[nameless_centurian]

i love to develop in the VS environment. it is the top player, no doubt. nothing else can touch it on any level, in my opinion.

however, it seems that for every new release, it just gets slower and slower. this makes a big difference when you're running on a company laptop that's about 4 years old.

my advice: stick with what you have unless you see a really good reason to upgrade.

 

[mikeblas]

Except that VC6 was arguably the worst C++ compiler I've ever used.

Yep, that's very much arguable.

 

[MotionBlur]

Although at work I use 2k3 for a 1.1 project, all future projects (including my side projects) will use 2k8. Like others have said it's amazing for cleaning up code.

 

[sparc]

If you're doing .NET 2.0 stuff, it's not too much different from VS2005. If you ever jump to 3.5, then you should use VS2008

 

[jasonlitka]

I recently switched to 2008 from 2005. The only real issue I ran into is that the Crystal Reports library got updated even though I was still building for .NET 2.0 so I had to install the CR 10.5 Runtime all over the place...