I think it's safe to say that Microsoft have shoehorned into this release a great deal of stuff which I think a lot of developers will be excited about - particularly the .NET 3.5 support and enhancements will make a lot of C# developers happy I've no doubt.
Trouble is, I aint a C# programmer, am I?
There were 2 things I was really looking forward to in this release - TR1 support and MFC 11. After reading some more stuff I started looking forward to Visual Studio Shell. But where are they I hear you ask? Simple answer is, they aren't anywhere yet because Microsoft haven't finished them yet. So why did Microsoft release a product that isn't finished yet? Probably the same reason they released Vista a pinch early. Make that pinch about 12 months big, and at least in comparison to that the C++ enhancements are a bit closer to completion with the goods being coughed up early next year. Nice.
In other news, the IDE has some enhancements which I'm sure we'll all learn to love or loathe. Enhanced ANSI C++ compatibility and Vista support (my main reason for using vs2008) make using this version worth while, but only just.
All in all I'm disappointed that the most exciting stuff didn't make it to the initial release. I guess I'll have to look towards open source libraries to fill the void for now (Boost & WxWidgets should do nicely, and they have the added benefit of being cross platform compatible). Wink, nudge.
