Is anyone else considering skipping the VS2008 generation?

[M Towler]

Ah. So it is principally an issue that you cannot download the .NET framework for earlier OS versions. That is always an issue with applications that rely on some kind of installed library. I imagine the C++ support will depend on which libraries and OS facilities are used. Much as I can still build an app that will run on win98 as long as unicode is not used.

[David Veeneman]

WPF and built-in unit testing are enough to get me to jump to VS 2008 when it comes out. But I'm not sure I'll be using other features of .NET 3.5, particularly LINQ.

David Veeneman www.veeneman.com

[bbehm]

What about WCF? Also, System.Web.ApplicationServices will allow you to extend ASP.NET Membership/Roles/Profile out to a client application.

[Jon Kruger]

I'm using VS2008 on a production project now and I'm very pleased (still using Winforms, not WPF). LINQ to SQL has a few oddities, but so does every ORM tool out there. Overall, our productivity with LINQ to SQL as the ORM tool has greatly increased, and now we're writing LINQ queries instead of waiting for some DBA to write a simple stored procedure for us. I'd say that makes the switch worth it. Nothing out there is perfect, but don't be afraid of something out there just because it's new or different.

[JayW2]

We just got our developers started with VS2005 and I personally would prefer to stick with a stable known platform like .Net 2.0 then to keep chaising the promise of improved developer productivity in a new product. Give me productivity enhancing features that I can use when maintaining code I've already written. There's no ROI for rewritting our whole application portfolio for the latest tool. Microsoft is really falling short lately in delivering value to customers. Just look at Vista, Office 2007 and Exchange 2007. Lot's of wiz-bang but short on value. We want tools that let us leverage our experience not tools that we need to completely relearn every few years. Maybe it is time to switch to Linux.

[egottwald]

Definitely jumping in [running the VPC version right now] if only for LINQ and the performance improvements...

[Dan Neely]

basically yes. You can download it, but it won't work because it's too tightly coupled to the win32 api. Even if you don't use the parts that require XP+ APIs the framework still does and you're screwed. In theory you could use a 3rd party .net to native compiler to make a win32 exe that would work on older hardware (provided you watch your API usage), but the software to do that is priced similarly to VS itself so I've never actually tried to do so.

-- If you view money as inherently evil, I view it as my duty to assist in making you more virtuous.

[k bl]

It's funny thought. Once you start to use those new tools, you start to wonder how you ever did what you did without them.

ASP.Net meets JQuery... Imagine the possibilities.

[Mike Dimmick]

.NET 3.5 is a continuation of the bad naming policy of the .NET Framework. It does not contain a new CLR. The new features added to the existing .NET 2.0 classes are not going in new side-by-side assemblies, they are going in ".NET Framework 2.0 SP1". That's right, they're updating the assemblies in place. It overwrites the existing GAC copy of Framework 2.0 DLLs so it's not even possible to use configuration files to go back. Hello, DLL Hell. Similarly there are some updates to ".NET 3.0" in this release, which replace the existing DLLs. So where's the new stuff going? Most of the new Base Class Libraries are going in System.Core.dll. Microsoft have defined 'red bits' which can only change very carefully and 'green bits' which contain the new stuff. See here[^] for information on what's what. The much touted '.NET multi-targeting' is a bit of a blind, therefore, because it actually just governs which assemblies you can select to go into your project. It all runs on top of CLR 2.0.

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DoEvents: Generating unexpected recursion since 1991

[Mike Dimmick]

VS2008 'multi-targeting' is a cheat. As Colin says, '.NET 3.0' and '.NET 3.5' still run on top of CLR 2.0. They share the same mscorlib.dll, System.dll, System.Windows.Forms.dll, etc. The '.NET 3.5' installer will download and install '.NET 3.0 SP1' and '.NET 2.0 SP1', which overwrite the existing assemblies in the GAC - no side-by-side here! VS2008 cannot target CLR 1.1, only CLR 2.0. To complicate things I believe .NET 2.0 SP1 will be downloadable separately and indeed become the supported version if Microsoft follow their normal support practices. So what does 'multi-targeting' really do? It restricts which assemblies you can reference and the code which is generated by default. It's a sham. Still, VS2008 on Vista should be better than 2005.

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DoEvents: Generating unexpected recursion since 1991

[senylity]

I want LINQ, but I'm having a hard time wrapping my brain around it. I tried using it for a relaively simple sql query, but got frustrated and went with something I knew. I like extension methods, simple properties, built in ajax, framework targeting, etc. I guess I need to study more about LINQ

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Success is the happy feeling you get between the time you do something and the time you tell a woman what you did. --Dibert My left name is Tremendous Savings, Ms. America – Señor Cardgage

[kccougar]

We'll certainly be a late adopter. We've been deploying 2.0 framework apps for about 18 Months now. We're at least 24 Months out from any new .NET framework deployments; too many mission-critical apps at risk, and at least 2 will break and need recoded. We jumped on the MS bandwagon with IE, XML DataIslands and client-side HTTPPost...What a Dead-end effort! That experience alone has put us in the "wait and see" mode. We'll see what shakes out in 2-3 years...

[Mike Dimmick]

More naming idiocy: to keep the names synchronized, the next version of .NET Compact Framework will be called .NET Compact Framework 3.5. Unlike the desktop, the Compact Framework gets an entirely new set of assemblies which will install side-by-side with the old ones, and a new set of native helper libraries (netcfagl3_5.dll, netcfd3dm3_5.dll and netcfmail3_5.dll). It also gets a new CLR (mscoree3_5.dll). It gets a weirdly cutdown version of WCF using email as the transport and LINQ. It doesn't get any other part of ".NET 3.0" because there's no practical way to implement WPF and no point in having Workflow. Unlike the desktop, .NET Compact Framework 2.0 could run 1.0 programs even if 1.0 was not installed, without any redirection through a .config file required. They stamp the AppDomain with a 'compatibility version' so that a few compatibility breaks can be shimmed out by the code. (It appears that if you passed a duff object to most Graphics.DrawXxx routines in CF 1.0 it wouldn't throw an exception, while v2 and later do, so the exception has to be suppressed if emulating v1.) This is also true of 3.5.

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DoEvents: Generating unexpected recursion since 1991

[Mike Dimmick]

It's due to the idiocy of labelling all the new stuff as ".NET" when in fact it's pure extensions, in new assemblies, to the features shipped in .NET Framework 2.0. A few of us here petitioned to stop WinFX being renamed ".NET Framework 3.0" because it would confuse. This is not entirely true - there are a few new classes and methods in ".NET Framework 2.0 SP1". Here[^] is a list of changes.

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DoEvents: Generating unexpected recursion since 1991

[SandyPham]

Every time I get something new from Microsoft, it has more bugs and annoyances. I spent hours turning off all the junk for VS2005 so I could actually type code without my computer hanging for 30 seconds at a time. I'm skipping VISTA as long as possible and I plan to skip VS 2008 as long as possible. Of course you know eventually you'll get it anyway when you download a service pack for something else. Whatever happened to that bundling lawsuit?

[Judah Gabriel Himango]

It's a different approach, for sure. Instead of telling the compiler how to get data, you just tell the compiler what data you want. e.g. instead of

List<int> myFavoriteInts = new List<int>();
foreach(int i in someList)
{
   if(i % 3 == 0 || i % 7 == 0)
   {
       myFavoriteInts.Add(i);
   }
}

You replace that by just telling the compiler what you want:

var myFavoriteInts = from someList where i % 3 || i % 7 select i;

This is a trivial example, of course, the benefits only double as things get more complex. Another nice side effect of this is that by telling the compiler what we want, rather than how to get it, the compiler is free to do optimizations on our queries. This is the premise for the upcoming PLINQ and ParallelFX libraries[^].

Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit. I'm currently blogging about: Forgive Me Father, For I Have Sinned: A Catholic Confession On Sabbath The apostle Paul, modernly speaking: Epistles of Paul Judah Himango

[BobRoeder]

Late Adopter??? hmmm I maybe a very late adopter, my company is still using VS6.0, something about the thickness of the layer of dust determines when software is to be rolled out and how many service packs. RC (who's first portable computer was a computer in a rack with wheels)

[Gates VP]

Looks like I'm the only one here... We work on small, RAD-style projects and one humongous high-throughput website (50 M hits/day) built entirely in .NET 2.0 and SQL 2005. We'll be rolling out VS2008 ASAP and we'll likely be implementing features right away. We have a "roll-your-own" Entity Framework, that's "trimmed-down" but tailored to the scale of project that we do. I'm already working on the LINQ extensions for the Entities and I'll likely be re-writing much of the Data Access Layer as the past months have shown that we don't necessarily need everything that's there. Right now, we're either building AJAX-enabled Web Sites / Web Apps or we're building some reasonably good-looking Winforms apps. I want a WPF to present to clients ASAP b/c WPF isn't going anywhere. WPF is fundamental to Vista (and any future Windows OS) and it's a fundamental shift in the way we build user interfaces. Let's put it this way: I actually have a design guy on my staff (for a team of ~8 devs) and he doesn't just do web pages. My design guy will be involved in rolling out new WPF apps to clients. My clients don't need Menu and Toolbar-driven applications, they need apps that look good and work in a way that they need them to. WPF is going to be part of that solution. WPF also have some nice binding features which is currently part of our MO. As to my high-throughput web app, we need any extra tools that we can get. Right now MS is working on PFX (parallel framework extension) for .NET 3.5. We want this stuff and we want it to work, b/c right now multi-threading is often required, but always painful. We're using threads for big and/or long tasks, but we could really use some quick & clean solution at the lower-level data access end. I know that for big & long-lived apps, all of these "new toys" are pretty moot b/c you can't rewrite old code. But the tech available in 3.0+ is pretty innovative and is really leading the way for *how* we're going to program in the next 5-10 years. I can't wait to sink my teeth :) Gates

[DontSailBackwards]

I'm a one-man band & I'll be diving into VS2008 (and Windows server 2008) for my next big one. Damn the expense - the time and pain it saves me will pay for that in no time. Leave the Edsel in the museum where it belongs.

It wasn't me, It was the Others. It was the Others, Not Me.

[fordc03]

You're a .Net developer and you don't have any freedom in choosing your tools? Have you looked around you? Seen the sun lately? I just negotiated a 4 day work week with a raise and less work! Talent is short, get with the program! =) Anyway, in keeping with the thread...I will jump in...right after I jump into Windows 2008, and SQL 2008...Then I can jump into VS 2008...oi, so much to learn...