System recommendations?

JD Nichols

I'm a VB6 die-hard who has only recently begun to make the move to .NET. My new employer has given me carte blanche to purchase a new dev system and VS2005. I would appreciate any input from experienced VS users about hardware or software add-ons/tools/etc.. It won't be easy to get purchase approvals later, so I want to get it right the first time. Any suggestions are appreciated, Thanks. :)

Ed Poore

Go for the biggest and best of everything :rolleyes: I should upgrade my developoment system at the moment but being a single progarmmer / student next year can't justify the cost yet when I've got to save up for uni and my trip to the world championships. But based on other's, most important thing is lots and lots of memory (minimum of ~2GB seems to be general consensus but it's runnable :~ on 256MB, as long as projects don't get too big). Dual core processor. Also big monitors are nice but dual or more displays I find preferable to a single huge monitor. Apart from those it depends on what your doing, will you need huge disks etc. Oh, fast broadband is necessary to access Google and CodeProject :rolleyes:

I have no idea what I just said. But my intentions were sincere.

JD Nichols

Thanks Ed:) After reading some input around the net, I did get the impression that VS2005 should be given as much RAM as you can afford. I guess a big dog needs a big yard to play in!:-D In any case, I like to keep a lot of other apps open at the same time, so it works for me. I'm thinking of a 20" widescreen (Dell Ultrasharp). According to some screenshots I saw of VS2005 on a widescreen, it gives you a lot of screen real-estate to keep your preferred toolbars open and still have plenty of room for your code pane. I think I'll go with your dual-core suggestion; I think quad-core would be straining my cred with the boss.:sigh: Thanks again! Hope the upgrade fairy leaves a killer system under your pillow soon!:laugh: JD

Ed Poore

JD Nichols wrote:

Hope the upgrade fairy leaves a killer system under your pillow soon!

Me too, unfortunately I'd have to justify it to my parents and they feel I should be saving up for uni. But the fact of the matter is a newer system could make me more productive at the moment at work (I'm working from home at the moment so have to use my own systems (which were better than the one I was given in the office)) :rolleyes:

I have no idea what I just said. But my intentions were sincere.

Kevin McFarlane

If you're gonna be using VB 2005 then the free Refactor! for VB add-in from Developer Express is a no-brainer (downloadable from the MSDN VB site). If you've got money to spare get the commercial version. There are quite a few other free tools and add-ins out there. There are a couple of articles on MSDN titled "10 must-have tools..." See http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/05/12/VisualStudioAddins/[^]

Kevin