A Sneak Peek at Visual Studio 2010 & .NET

Framework 4.0

Antonio Chagoury

December 2009

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About Me

• Principal & Software Architect of Inspector IT, Inc.• Microsoft MVP – Visual Basic• DotNetNuke Core Team Member and Project

Lead, Blog and Install Utility• Co-Founder and President of the Capital

DotNetNuke User Group (CDUG) • Uses DotNetNuke as the Development Platform

for large Web 2.0 and Enterprise Implementations

• I do not like PowerPoint… but…

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Too Much Stuff to Cover in 1.5 hours

Breakpoint Labeling, Breakpoint Searching, Breakpoint Import/Export, Dynamic Data Tooling, WPF Tree Visualizer, Call Hierarchy, Improved WPF Tooling, Historical Debugging, Mini-Dump Debugging, Quick Search, Better Multi-Monitor Support, Highlight References, Parallel Stacks Window, Parallel Tasks Window, Document Map Margin, Generate From Usage, Concurrency Profiler, Inline Call Tree, Extensible Test runner, MVC Tooling, Web Deploy, JQuery Intellisense, SharePoint Tooling, HTML Snippets, Web.config Transformation, Click-Once Enhancements for Microsoft Office, IDE Rewritten in WPF, New Gadgets Subsystem, Zoom, Box Selection, Call Hierarchy, Navigate To, Highlighting References, Intellisense Suggestion Mode, Generate From Usage…

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Too Much Stuff to Cover in 1.5 Hours – Cont’d…and that was a short-list of new IDE features ALONE!

• Focus of this presentation is on:– Visual Studio 2010: A close look at the new IDE– .NET 4.0, Visual Basic 10, C#– ASP.NET Web Development

• Web Forms

• Review MVC 2.0 features

– CAVEAT: I’ll cover the stuff I liked the most

• We’re going to move fast, so fasten your seatbelts!

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.NET Framework Timeline & Roadmap

• 2002: Visual Studio .NET 2002 (.NET 1.0)• 2003: Visual Studio .NET 2003 (.NET 1.1)• 2005: Visual Studio 2005 (.NET 2.0)• 2007: Visual Studio 2008 (.NET 2.0/3.0/3.5)

2010: Visual Studio 2010 (.NET 2.0/3.0/3.5/4.0)

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What’s New in

• General Improvements• Debugging• Parallelism• Web• Extensibility• UI rewritten in WPF• Visual Studio is no longer just a Code Editor,

it is also a Platform!

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as an Editor

• Editor improvements focus primarily on:– Writing code– Understanding code– Navigating and debugging code– Publishing code

• Editor improvements focus on Productivity!

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as an Editor – Cont’d

• General improvements– Zoom– Docking Windows and Multi-Monitor Support– Call Hierarchy– Highlighting References– “Generate From” Usage– “Navigate To” Usage– Intellisense Consume-First Mode– Multi-Targeting

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as an Editor – Cont’d

• Zoom– CTRL + Mouse Wheel– Enhances the ability to zoom the

code editor canvas– Very useful for pair programming,

peer code reviews, training,presentations, etc.

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as an Editor – Cont’d

• Docking Windows and Multi-Monitor Support– New docking visuals– Windows can be docked anywhere– Better use with multiple monitors

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as an Editor – Cont’d

• Call Hierarchy– Keyboard shortcut: CTRL + K, T– Available in C#– Used to see calls to and from a method– Great way to see calls at design time

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as an Editor – Cont’d

• Highlighting References– Automatic highlighting of a symbol– Can be used with declarations and references, and

many other symbols

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as an Editor – Cont’d

• “Generate From”– Used to automatically create stub code– Enables you to use classes and members before

defining them– Great for refactoring code– If you are familiar with ReSharper then you’ll like

this

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as an Editor – Cont’d

• “Navigate To”– Keyboard shortcut: CTRL + ,– Provides search-as-you-type support for files,

types, and members– Enables quick searching based on case usage

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as an Editor – Cont’d

• Intellisense Consume First Mode– Keyboard shortcut: CTRL + ALT + SPACE– Used when classes and members are used before

they are defined– Helps to reduce situations where IntelliSense

inserts unintended text into the editor

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as an Editor – Cont’d

• Multi-Targeting– VS 2008 was the first release of Visual Studio that included

multi-targeting support for .NET

• .NET 2.0, .NET 3.0, and .NET 3.5 all ran on top of the same version of the CLR

• Worked, but wasn’t perfect

– VS 2010 now ships with “reference assemblies” for each version of .NET. 

• A “reference assembly” contains only the metadata of a particular framework assembly – much smaller in size.

• Ensures that VS 2010 can always provide 100% accurate intellisense when targeting a particular version of the .NET framework

– VS 2010 debugger, profiler and compilers are able to target multiple versions of the CLR.

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as an Editor – Cont’d

• Breakpoints– Can add labels to breakpoints– All breakpoints are now searchable– Import / Export now available

• Floating Data Tips– DataTips that float in the source window– Floating DataTips remain visible until the debugging session

ends

• New Threading Window– Provides filtering, call-stack searching, expansion, and grouping– New columns added: Affinity masks, Process names, Managed

IDs

DEMO

What’s new in Visual Studio 2010: Editor

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as a Platform

Integrated Online Gallery

Extension Manager

DEMO

What’s new in Visual Studio 2010: Platform

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What’s New in .NET Framework 4.0

• C# and VB Language Parity– Microsoft combined C# and VB teams into one

group with the goal of merging the two languages features set

• IDE still behaves differently and function vary from language to language

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What’s New in .NET Framework 4.0

• Visual Basic 10– Auto-Implemented Properties

Shortened syntax that enables you to quickly specify a property of a class without having to write code

– Collection InitializersShortened syntax that enables you to create a collection and populate it with an initial set of values. (This was in C#)

– Implicit Line ContinuationEnables you to continue a statement on the next consecutive line without using the underscore character

– Improved Lambda SupportAction Queries and Multiline Lambda are now supported

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What’s New in .NET Framework 4.0

• C#– Optional and Named Parameters

• Named arguments enable you to specify an argument for a particular parameter by associating the argument with the parameter's name rather than with the parameter's position in the parameter list.

• Optional arguments enable you to omit arguments for some parameters. Both techniques can be used with methods, indexers, constructors, and delegates.

– Dynamic Type

• Operations that contain expressions of type dynamic are not resolved or type checked by the compiler. The compiler packages together information about the operation, and that information is later used to evaluate the operation at run time

DEMO

What’s new in .NET Framework 4.0: Languages Changes (C#, VB)

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What’s New in .NET Framework 4.0: ASP.NET Web Forms (Yep, its still here!)

• New full-featured project templates• Leaner Web.Config• More control over view state• Access to meta tags• ASP.NET routing• Auto-Start web applications• Compress session state with Gzip• Extensible output caching• Permanent redirects (301)

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What’s New in .NET Framework 4.0: ASP.NET Web Forms – CONTROLS• Control over HTML mark-up rendered by

Templated controls• New charting control• Semantic menu generation• RadioButtonList and CheckBoxList enhancements• Persist selected rows in data controls• Control over generated Client-Side IDs• Filtering support for data source controls• ListView control enhancements

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What’s New in .NET Framework 4.0: ASP.NET Web Forms – Cont’d

“Microsoft’s major underlying theme with the Web Forms enhancements is the

tremendous focus it placed on semantic and standard compliant HTML markup

generation of controls”

DEMO

What’s new in ASP.NET Web Forms

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What’s New in .NET Framework 4.0: ASP.NET MVC 2

• Templated Helpers• Display Enhancements• Support for DataAnnotations• Data Entry Enhancements• Areas• Client-Side validation with jQuery• Async Controller Actions

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What’s NOT Covered, but Deserve Mentioning• Silverlight• Microsoft Entity Framework• Azure• Microsoft SharePoint• Microsoft Office• Unit Testing Toolset

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Resources

• Download Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2• Visual Studio 2010 on Channel 9• Visual Studio 2010 Quick-Hit Videos• ASP.NET 4.0 Quick-Hit Videos• Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Train

ing Kit • Extending Visual Studio 2010• My Blog• My Company Website• Follow me on Twitter!