Anyone played with VS 11 preview yet
-
Here's my observations so far from both the sessions at Build and playing around with it myself in a VM. (I checked out VS on the tablet they gave us, but immediately determined that only a masochist would even think about coding on a tablet). 0. There aren't a lot of new features. Most are subtle or only interest smaller segments of developers 1. It's as stable as you expect a pre-beta app to be. 2. Being restricted to Metro-style apps in the developer preview version sucks. 3. The integration of some of the features from VS2010 Power Tools is cool. 4. Being able to determine why DirectX rendered a particular pixel the way it did is very cool. Makes me wish I did graphics programming! 5. Having WinDbg integrated in to VS is awesome. 6. Integrating Expression Blend, or at least parts of it, for the XAML designer is a good thing. 7. For .NET developers, it's probably worth checking out the preview just to get familiar with the new async language features coming in the next versions of C# and VB. 8. More cool stuff is coming out in about a month with the Project Roslyn CTP. Project Roslyn is the work they're doing on the C# and VB compilers to open the compilers up and create APIs on top of the different steps in the compiler pipeline (syntax tree, symbols, emitting IL/object code, etc.). Anders Hejlsburg demoed user-created refactorings in VS, an interactive C# prompt, and C#<->VB converters in just a few lines of code.
Kythen wrote:
4. Being able to determine why DirectX rendered a particular pixel the way it did is very cool. Makes me wish I did graphics programming!
I suppose this is just directX that they've improved graphics debugging on... There've been times I'd've killed for a debugger that would let me visualize a bitmap in mid-manipulation or a control in mid-Paint.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason? Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful? --Zachris Topelius Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies. -- Sarah Hoyt