I'm curious what everyone thinks of Microsoft's lastest IDE, because I need to decide if I should upgrade from 2008.
I've always been a lover of Microsoft Visual Studio, without wanting to start a IDE religion war, I must say that I've been spoiled by it, and I refuse to code with Anjuta, Elipse, XCode or whatever else that's not VS.
Recently, my boss decided to buy licenses for Visual Studio 2010. I tried it a bit, but then I saw horror: Microsoft took out Dynamic Help, a feature I used every 5 minutes. That little feature made me more productive and I'm trying to convince the department to stay with Visual Studio 2008.
At the same time, technologies are evolving, and I don't want to work with an obsolete IDE. I took a look at the new features, and the big thing seems to be the dynamic types for the .NET framework 4.0. That doesn't look like a deal breaker to me (seems to be a feature for F# and IronRuby support) but LINQ didn't seem like a big deal either, although now I'm addicted to it!
Do you guys think that Visual Studio 2010 brings enough features on the table to be worth the loss of 2008's superior help system?
Visual Studio 2010 worth the upgrade?
Dynamic help was great, and so was Document Explorer. I'm not happy with the removal of DE.
However, I have to express concern at your extreme over usage of the help system. I mean, are you trying to say you haven't learnt anything and still need to look up every single keyword as you type?
Personally I love VS2010. I miss DE a lot, but the world hasn't ended.
However, I have to express concern at your extreme over usage of the help system. I mean, are you trying to say you haven't learnt anything and still need to look up every single keyword as you type?
Personally I love VS2010. I miss DE a lot, but the world hasn't ended.
I have been using 2010 for a little while now, and as much as I love using it I haven't noticed any features that I find appealing, I personally like to stay up to date on the software in my field. I wouldn't say upgrade for nothing, I personally don't use the help in vs2008 and I haven't attempted to do so in 2010 so I cannot comment on those features. It has a few things you need to get used to from 2008 to 2010, but after that it is easy to use and I really enjoy the visual appeal of 2010 over 2008, and since I have to look at it for hours at a time this is important for me. Is it worth getting over 2008, look up 2008 vs 2010 comparisons and see if they are really worth switching for you.
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Quote:Original post by BLiTZWiNGNo, no, no, that was exaggeration. IntelliSense tooltips are often enough to figure what a method or parameter does in case of a blank. But everytime I need to consult the complete reference to a method or class, I clicked on the link in Dynamic Help. I liked that feature because sometimes, a method name is referenced at 10 different places thought multiple libraries in the MSDN database. If an item was found 10 times, Dynamic Help will display all 10 links so you can pick the right one. F1, on the other hand, doesn't always give you the one you're interested in, especially in C++. In a C++ project, type "Create" and press F1. I doubt you'd fall on the Create you're looking for.
However, I have to express concern at your extreme over usage of the help system. I mean, are you trying to say you haven't learnt anything and still need to look up every single keyword as you type?
I think it depends on what you use. For C++, probably not so much. I like the new C++ intellisense, although it is buggy as hell. Sucks having to do Project -> Rescan Solution all the time. It never updates when I want it and it sucks seeing lots of red squiggly underlines when there is absolutely nothing wrong with your code for anywhere up to a few minutes (for it to update). I also feel the "Go To Definition/Declaration"s works a lot better than before and the collapsing seems nicer. I also don't like the #include completion... every time I type in
Other than that... seems the same to me :-). I just thank God I didn't have to pay for the update (thank you Dreamspark).
#include<windows.h>Other than that... seems the same to me :-). I just thank God I didn't have to pay for the update (thank you Dreamspark).
(Still on 2005 here)
Have they fixed the form designer (for c++) yet, so you can put a tabbed dialog and then drag and drop controls onto the tabs?
You know, like you could in 6.0 and every other competitor?
Have they fixed the form designer (for c++) yet, so you can put a tabbed dialog and then drag and drop controls onto the tabs?
You know, like you could in 6.0 and every other competitor?
Quote:Original post by yadango
I think it depends on what you use. For C++, probably not so much. I like the new C++ intellisense, although it is buggy as hell. Sucks having to do Project -> Rescan Solution all the time. It never updates when I want it and it sucks seeing lots of red squiggly underlines when there is absolutely nothing wrong with your code for anywhere up to a few minutes (for it to update).
I absolutely sympathise with you there, happens to me all the time.
If you have a 32-bit machine and large solutions, or aren't particularly needing/wanting to use .NET 4, or the latest C++ language features etc, then it would probably pay to wait until they put out a service pack. The compiler under 32-bit is particularly prone to randomly crashing, hanging, or generating spurious internal compiler errors when using the /MP switch, and of course is much slower without it. That goes away if you're running a 64-bit OS though.
It seems to have a lot of problems working out when precompiled headers need to be rebuilt, and frequently corrupts them, or at least complains that they are corrupted until you rebuild them.
It monopolises the system of my work PC (decent spec quad-core) so much that my PC is virtually unusable during a compile. Great for getting the build done faster I imagine, but I'd be happy for it to take twice as long and actually allow me to do other stuff in the mean time.
Oh, and if you use your monitor in a rotated position (I have one of mine rotated 90 degrees) then the UI slows to an absolute crawl on that screen. Even the mouse pointer slows to about 3fps when trying to select menu items! VS2008 OTOH is fine with it.
Well that's all the negatives anyway, which I think is what you were after.
It's not bad, but I'm not sure the upgrade is worth it yet.
One problem I have is that there's no production ready version of XNA for it yet (XNA 4.0 will support it but is in beta). At least the DirectX SDK officially supports it now, but it's a bit frustrating that Microsoft don't support their own IDE with their technologies for months and months after release.
Also, I've found that the code editor crashes regularly when editing ASPX files, it seems to be relate to intellisense, as you're typing then it pauses and doesn't render anything new as if it's trying to find intellisense suggestions, and then the IDE just crashes losing you any unsaved work. There seems to be no patch for this yet.
I'd wait to upgrade until the bugs are ironed out, and when Microsoft themselves fully support it.
I don't see why you need dynamic help though, a browser window is only an alt+tab away and Google tends to jump up much better information. I don't think the time lost in typing into Google (assuming you're an adept computer user and can switch windows and type fast) and getting results is going to make any real difference to a project at the end of the day. It was useful when I was still learning, but even at 1920x1200 it ends up just being extra clutter. That doesn't mean Microsoft were right to get rid of it of course, but it's not a feature that should ever really be a deal breaker.
One problem I have is that there's no production ready version of XNA for it yet (XNA 4.0 will support it but is in beta). At least the DirectX SDK officially supports it now, but it's a bit frustrating that Microsoft don't support their own IDE with their technologies for months and months after release.
Also, I've found that the code editor crashes regularly when editing ASPX files, it seems to be relate to intellisense, as you're typing then it pauses and doesn't render anything new as if it's trying to find intellisense suggestions, and then the IDE just crashes losing you any unsaved work. There seems to be no patch for this yet.
I'd wait to upgrade until the bugs are ironed out, and when Microsoft themselves fully support it.
I don't see why you need dynamic help though, a browser window is only an alt+tab away and Google tends to jump up much better information. I don't think the time lost in typing into Google (assuming you're an adept computer user and can switch windows and type fast) and getting results is going to make any real difference to a project at the end of the day. It was useful when I was still learning, but even at 1920x1200 it ends up just being extra clutter. That doesn't mean Microsoft were right to get rid of it of course, but it's not a feature that should ever really be a deal breaker.
I tried it out but reverted to 2008. The C++ intellisense is much improved and that alone is probably worth the admission price, but overall I felt that it wasn't quite ready yet. The IDE is just flat out too slow (although I'm on 8 cores now so it's probably worth another try shortly), and there were a handful of other niggles I can't remember right now - nothing dramatic individually but taken together they were significant enough. The real deal breaker for me however was that executables it produces won't run on Windows 2000. If you need to deploy to people with older machines that's worth considering.
i love the new c# intellisense which looks for any CamelCase word as you type.
CallDavepermensMagicFunction now pops up when i write 'd'. i love it.
other than that, not much different. it serves me well. it just works.
CallDavepermensMagicFunction now pops up when i write 'd'. i love it.
other than that, not much different. it serves me well. it just works.
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