I would have to say...

leppie

Marc Clifton wrote:

I find VS2008 is the last usable IDE that Microsoft has put out.

And that is why I havent bothered upgrading my home PC yet. (I do have express versions installed, but never use them) Also, the debugger for .NET 4 onwards is so bloody slow you can't even run unit tests under it... VS2012 was not to VS2010 as VS2008 was to VS2005 and VS2003 was to VS2002. Dammit, I have expectations!

IronScheme
((λ (x) `(,x ',x)) '(λ (x) `(,x ',x)))

Forogar

I found VS2010 pretty good, not much different from VS2008 for what I used it for, but VS2012 is a definite backward step - and not in good way.

- Life in the fast lane is only fun if you live in a country with no speed limits. - Of all the things I have lost, it is my mind that I miss the most. - I vaguely remember having a good memory...

Maximilien

VS2010 was running like a pig in Jell-O while the RC of VS2012 was running like a cheetah in the plains of Africa on my machine. I was never ever able to do any kind of work with VS2010; and now with VS2012, ther is a glimmer of hope.

Nihil obstat

SoMad

I have not made it to VS2012 yet, but I understand it is not quite as slow as VS2010. Occasionally (a lot more than I would like to admit), I have to go back and do some work in good old Visual C++ 6. After working a whole day in VS2010 on our large projects, the speed (or un-sluggishness) of VC6 almost make you want to cry. Soren Madsen

"When you don't know what you're doing it's best to do it quickly" - Jase #DuckDynasty

Valery Possoz

I find 2012 a bit faster than 2010. But what's the point! It's unusable, dark gray on light gray with a shade of gray here and there and gray icons everywhere... I don't know why on earth Microsoft decided that painting everything with gray is a good idea! This monochromatic trend is ridiculous. Gray is now my most hated colour! I just updated my work PC to office 2013, and it's the same gray nightmare... it's terrible! Anyway I agree with you 2012 is the worst ms IDE since VB6.

Ennis Ray Lynch Jr

I don't really like VS 2012 visually but, for the things I do, there are some improvements. For example, edit and continue with lamdba expressions in method is nice. Unfortunately, you have to double enter with typing a watch, and watch intellisense doesn't work. All in all, I would say it is a wash with no compelling reason to upgrade but I wouldn't write it off entirely. Also, the Thread debugging features do crash less.

Need custom software developed? I do custom programming based primarily on MS tools with an emphasis on C# development and consulting. "And they, since they Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs" -- Robert Frost "All users always want Excel" --Ennis Lynch

H Brydon

I like the new language features and bugfixes with the newer compiler versions, but the last Visual Studio IDE version that I really liked was VS6. I use double wide monitors and typically like to have 20 to 30 windows open. This kinda lends itself to the MDI paradigm, which was last best implemented with VS6. I really dislike the sliding tabbed window stuff which is all we get now.

-- Harvey

Mark_Wallace

Too many unfulfilled promises. i.e. the world didn't end.

I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!

YvesDaoust

I hope I'll never have to use VS 2010, way too slow to launch. Fortunately, I won't use 2012 soon since installing the beta broke my system so much that it became perfectly impossible to uninstall/repair/install or whatever. The little I saw of it shows it grew more monstruous than the former. I have worked a lot with VS 2003 and still use it as my main development platform, even though it has several irritating features such as very sloooow debugging. VS 2008 is cool too. Globally speaking, these IDE are marvels. My only regrets are that GUI applications often resist to debugging by not getting you to the very crash location (see what I mean ?). And that the Profiler went away from the standard version. I still love VC6 for being so fast. For a daily usage, little of VC has changed over the successive versions. In recent months, I have used Eclipse a lot more. It doesn't stand the comparison.

JeremyBob

Personally I loved 2005/2008. I didn't mind 2010, but it was slow. I took one look at 2012, and decided I didn't want to use it unless I'm forced to. 2003 and earlier were just plain horrid (though most of my opinion on it is based on coding in .Net 1.1.)

Jonathan C Dickinson

I found 2012 to be much faster than 2008 (and that's on a HyperV VM, i.e. no hardware UI acceleration). Update 2 is especially quick (they got rid of a few of those wait dialogs and mundane things like how fast characters appear on the screen are incredibly fast now). If you use TFS at all the source control explorer is also a lot faster (especially "get latest"), not to mention the parallel project loading (something 2008 is still dreadful at). My cup of tea isn't yours - but I seriously think 2012 is a major step forward. Also, how many extensions do you have loaded up in 2012? Because 2008 didn't have the simple extension framework from 2010/2012 it's a lot more difficult to bog 2008 down with unnecessary crap. Edit: Also Update 2 has a newer, more colorful, color scheme - for those who want it. I personally concentrate on my code more; so all IDEs look the same (colored text on a plain background) - the dull 2012 IDE actually helps with concentration because I get less distracted by the chrome/frame.

He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes. He who does not ask a question remains a fool forever. [Chinese Proverb] Jonathan C Dickinson (C# Software Engineer)

Kashif_Imran

MS could have done worse. Just think of how they went from Win7 to Win8. I am sure the ride from VS08 to VS10 to VS12 will start looking way better. Maybe MS have become sick of the lawsuits regarding competition and monopoly things!

N J Wong

Agree. Also, visually, VS2008 is beautiful. VS2010 suffers from the blues. And VS2012 is really bland and bleak. I have to use VS2008 because of applications running on .NET Compact Framework 3.5 on Windows Mobile and Windows CE devices. Using VS2010 for Windows Forms applications that interact with Crystal Reports. Haven't started with VS2012 because Crystal Reports wasn't ready (SAP just released Crystal Reports for Visual Studio 2012 3 weeks ago). I wish that VS2012 can be skinned to be as beautiful as VS2008. VS2012 is so dull and ugly.

Anna Jayne Metcalfe

In terms of the IDE itself - without a doubt VS2008. We've used it for Visual Lint since upgrading from VS2003, and the experience has been pretty painless and very productive. However, we're now getting to the point where we really need to start using the serious C++ 11 stuff, so an upgrade to VS2012 is in order. My eyes will probably never forgive me.

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?"

JimBob SquarePants

A lot of you guys sound really old just now. A few of the comments could be summed up with "I don't like change". VS2012 Is a major step forward in performance alone. Have you read the blog? There were some brilliant articles there explaining the work they did to reduce the memory footprint. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/[^] Loading the toolbox for example is waaay faster in VS2012. Templating, Nuget, first-class support for JavaScript and CSS, better edmx designer, intellisense and intellitracing improvements, extension management, the list goes on... All great features. There's even Git integration coming soon. As far as the IDE theme goes, I switched it to the dark theme and my eyes have thanked me since. It's far easier on the peepers than any prior version.

JimBob SquarePants ******************************************************************* "He took everything personally, including our royalties!" David St.Hubbins, Spinal Tap about Ian Faith, their ex-manager *******************************************************************

Gary Wheeler

Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote:

the Thread debugging features do crash less

Now that's a ringing endorsement :laugh:.

Software Zen: delete this;

Ryan Criddle

I love 2012, quite a bit faster than 2010 and whilst I understand a lot of people hate the "boring gray", just enable the Dark Theme already and stop whinging! :) It's sexy!

Guy Harwood

Have you used 2012 for a straight week? i despised it at first, but after a week or so i found it more fluid. definitely easier to work in once you get used to it. the 2010 UI seems jarring when i open it now.

---Guy H ;-)---

baffled

Thank goodness the styler is now out so you can change at least some of it from grey. I found it was giving me serious eye strain after just a couple of hours. But I hate the kiddy-crayon graphics and monotone presentation. It does not aid intelligibility. Despite the performance improvements, the presentation seriously affects the usability. I'll be sticking to 2010 for as long as I can.

Jonathan C Dickinson

JimBob SquarePants wrote:

"I don't like change"

Just some of the things that people who complain about VS2012 are experiencing. Not being a victim of those mental processes are a deliberate decision (i.e. "I am going to evaluate VS2012 based on its merits and not what I am accustomed to").

He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes. He who does not ask a question remains a fool forever. [Chinese Proverb] Jonathan C Dickinson (C# Software Engineer)