Visual studio extensions - productivity power tools
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Dont know if anything about this[^] was ever posted here. But some of these Productivity Power tools are nice. I just discovered them now (thanks to Venkatesh Mookkan).
The funniest thing about this particular signature is that by the time you realise it doesn't say anything it's too late to stop reading it. My latest tip/trick Visit the Hindi forum here.
Other than the whole thread about vs extensions last week? ;)
“If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea” - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
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My biggest concern with add-ins and extensions for Visual Studio is how they somehow make the app a little slower and a tad more unstable. I do install some add-ins because the advantages they offer outweigh the loss in speed and stability. But the power tools, I'll probably skip - even though that searchable references dialog looks very enticing.
Regards, Nish
My technology blog: voidnish.wordpress.com Code Project Forums : New Posts Monitor This application monitors for new posts in the Code Project forums.
Nishant Sivakumar wrote:
My biggest concern with add-ins and extensions for Visual Studio is how they somehow make the app a little slower and a tad more unstable.
By definition you should only get a performance impact from extensions that respond to events - those which are passive (i.e. completely command invoked) shouldn't affect it at all. The actual impact depends on that they do, which interfaces they use, how they are written and which language they're implemented in (like it or not, this is one of those areas where managed code carries an overhead you could well do without). Stability depends on the skill/competance of the developers (both of the extension and the IDE - extensions use internal interfaces MS don't test as thoroughly as the external UI, and which can break unpredictably between versions) and level of testing. The right mix for a given developer is a very personal thing - and for some "none" is almost certainly the right choice. I still can't understand how any VS developer can live without Visual Assist though. :rose:
Anna :rose: Tech Blog | Visual Lint "Why would anyone prefer to wield a weapon that takes both hands at once, when they could use a lighter (and obviously superior) weapon that allows you to wield multiple ones at a time, and thus supports multi-paradigm carnage?"
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Nishant Sivakumar wrote:
My biggest concern with add-ins and extensions for Visual Studio is how they somehow make the app a little slower and a tad more unstable.
By definition you should only get a performance impact from extensions that respond to events - those which are passive (i.e. completely command invoked) shouldn't affect it at all. The actual impact depends on that they do, which interfaces they use, how they are written and which language they're implemented in (like it or not, this is one of those areas where managed code carries an overhead you could well do without). Stability depends on the skill/competance of the developers (both of the extension and the IDE - extensions use internal interfaces MS don't test as thoroughly as the external UI, and which can break unpredictably between versions) and level of testing. The right mix for a given developer is a very personal thing - and for some "none" is almost certainly the right choice. I still can't understand how any VS developer can live without Visual Assist though. :rose:
Anna :rose: Tech Blog | Visual Lint "Why would anyone prefer to wield a weapon that takes both hands at once, when they could use a lighter (and obviously superior) weapon that allows you to wield multiple ones at a time, and thus supports multi-paradigm carnage?"
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I'm with you on the Visual Assist thing. Since I've been using it, I do so much less typing than I used to in order to get more coding done. ... And it works with C++ (my primary language) and not just C# and VB.
I'm still amazed there are developers (and particularly C++ developers) who don't use it. :omg: VSFileFinder, vs-build-timer, IncrediBuild and IncludeManager are the other ones I have loaded all of the time, along with ResOrg and Visual Lint when I'm not actively working on them (running and developing the same add-in at the same time is kinda messy!).
Anna :rose: Tech Blog | Visual Lint "Why would anyone prefer to wield a weapon that takes both hands at once, when they could use a lighter (and obviously superior) weapon that allows you to wield multiple ones at a time, and thus supports multi-paradigm carnage?"
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Dont know if anything about this[^] was ever posted here. But some of these Productivity Power tools are nice. I just discovered them now (thanks to Venkatesh Mookkan).
The funniest thing about this particular signature is that by the time you realise it doesn't say anything it's too late to stop reading it. My latest tip/trick Visit the Hindi forum here.
I've found some of them to be very useful, but others of course not so much. The auto-complete for braces and quoates and such gets annoying sometimes.
I know the language. I've read a book. - _Madmatt
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Dont know if anything about this[^] was ever posted here. But some of these Productivity Power tools are nice. I just discovered them now (thanks to Venkatesh Mookkan).
The funniest thing about this particular signature is that by the time you realise it doesn't say anything it's too late to stop reading it. My latest tip/trick Visit the Hindi forum here.
If they have an add-in that will start my IDE faster, I'm there.
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Nishant Sivakumar wrote:
My biggest concern with add-ins and extensions for Visual Studio is how they somehow make the app a little slower and a tad more unstable.
By definition you should only get a performance impact from extensions that respond to events - those which are passive (i.e. completely command invoked) shouldn't affect it at all. The actual impact depends on that they do, which interfaces they use, how they are written and which language they're implemented in (like it or not, this is one of those areas where managed code carries an overhead you could well do without). Stability depends on the skill/competance of the developers (both of the extension and the IDE - extensions use internal interfaces MS don't test as thoroughly as the external UI, and which can break unpredictably between versions) and level of testing. The right mix for a given developer is a very personal thing - and for some "none" is almost certainly the right choice. I still can't understand how any VS developer can live without Visual Assist though. :rose:
Anna :rose: Tech Blog | Visual Lint "Why would anyone prefer to wield a weapon that takes both hands at once, when they could use a lighter (and obviously superior) weapon that allows you to wield multiple ones at a time, and thus supports multi-paradigm carnage?"
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If they can't work out that sometimes spending a little capital (and let's face it, it ain't a lot) is worth it to increase the productivity of their key people, it doesn't sound like they are particularly astute at managing their business.
Anna :rose: Tech Blog | Visual Lint "Why would anyone prefer to wield a weapon that takes both hands at once, when they could use a lighter (and obviously superior) weapon that allows you to wield multiple ones at a time, and thus supports multi-paradigm carnage?"
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If they can't work out that sometimes spending a little capital (and let's face it, it ain't a lot) is worth it to increase the productivity of their key people, it doesn't sound like they are particularly astute at managing their business.
Anna :rose: Tech Blog | Visual Lint "Why would anyone prefer to wield a weapon that takes both hands at once, when they could use a lighter (and obviously superior) weapon that allows you to wield multiple ones at a time, and thus supports multi-paradigm carnage?"
Beancounter is an overly long four letter word. Edit, and so is Process. It's not standard software so IT won't buy it, and I'd need to start a process that would likely consume several hundred dollars of time to try and get it bought out of someone elses overhead budget. Having spent several months doing that to get a $60 ergonomic mouse (I'm a lefty and the only one on the market was a 10 button cordless mouse that someone kept balking at as being too expensive) I have no desire to waste my time on it again.
3x12=36 2x12=24 1x12=12 0x12=18
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I agree - they do make VS2010 a little slower. Their solution navigator (with the search) is very neat and the best feature. BTW, who can complain about colored file tabs (based on the project the file belongs too). :)
The funniest thing about this particular signature is that by the time you realise it doesn't say anything it's too late to stop reading it. My latest tip/trick Visit the Hindi forum here.
Abhinav S wrote:
BTW, who can complain about colored file tabs (based on the project the file belongs too).
The colored tabs are sweet. Does anyone know if they can be applied to SSMS? I recall the SSMS team saying something about their tabs were pulled from Visual Studio, and so they couldn't fix all the issues they have with them. Makes me wonder if there are some registry hacks somewhere to re-use the goodness.
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Beancounter is an overly long four letter word. Edit, and so is Process. It's not standard software so IT won't buy it, and I'd need to start a process that would likely consume several hundred dollars of time to try and get it bought out of someone elses overhead budget. Having spent several months doing that to get a $60 ergonomic mouse (I'm a lefty and the only one on the market was a 10 button cordless mouse that someone kept balking at as being too expensive) I have no desire to waste my time on it again.
3x12=36 2x12=24 1x12=12 0x12=18
It took me all of 5 minutes of demonstration to convince my coworkers and my boss to buy VisualAssist! Do get the trial, get used to it for a week, then uninstall it and see how much you miss it. It is worth every length of process you have to go through to get it. And, honestly, if I hadn't managed to convince my boss I would have strongly considered to buy it privately, just to make my work less tedious!
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Dont know if anything about this[^] was ever posted here. But some of these Productivity Power tools are nice. I just discovered them now (thanks to Venkatesh Mookkan).
The funniest thing about this particular signature is that by the time you realise it doesn't say anything it's too late to stop reading it. My latest tip/trick Visit the Hindi forum here.
What I really do not understand is that some guys at Microsoft do see how clunky and unwieldy the VS IDE still is, and yet they didn't build this stuff into the IDE right away!? Why? If it's good why not integrate it? If it's bad, why even bother develop this stuff? I have the strong suspicion MS is using developers as beta testers. Using the AddOn platform means they won't have to disentangle new bugs from VS problems, and won't need to tie patches and updates to fixes required for these tools. I wouldn't know any other reason.
modified on Friday, October 15, 2010 10:30 AM
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Beancounter is an overly long four letter word. Edit, and so is Process. It's not standard software so IT won't buy it, and I'd need to start a process that would likely consume several hundred dollars of time to try and get it bought out of someone elses overhead budget. Having spent several months doing that to get a $60 ergonomic mouse (I'm a lefty and the only one on the market was a 10 button cordless mouse that someone kept balking at as being too expensive) I have no desire to waste my time on it again.
3x12=36 2x12=24 1x12=12 0x12=18
My sympathies - I suspect most of us have encountered organisations like that. :rose: If it helps, I've always found that talking to the right people using the right language can counteract the natural tendency of such organsisations to pull their jumper over their head and go "la-la-la" when anyone suggests they do anything out of the ordinary. But then I am a bit of a self-confessed troublemaker. It does seem to work most of the time though! :rolleyes:
Anna :rose: Tech Blog | Visual Lint "Why would anyone prefer to wield a weapon that takes both hands at once, when they could use a lighter (and obviously superior) weapon that allows you to wield multiple ones at a time, and thus supports multi-paradigm carnage?"
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It took me all of 5 minutes of demonstration to convince my coworkers and my boss to buy VisualAssist! Do get the trial, get used to it for a week, then uninstall it and see how much you miss it. It is worth every length of process you have to go through to get it. And, honestly, if I hadn't managed to convince my boss I would have strongly considered to buy it privately, just to make my work less tedious!
$250 is well above what I'm willing to pay out of pocket for something I'd only really use at work. Running a personal edition at work isn't going to fly with the PHB's even if it's kosher with the company waging burrocratic war isn't my idea of fun.
3x12=36 2x12=24 1x12=12 0x12=18
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