Microsoft is including Visual Studio Team System technology in the first beta of Visual Studio 2005, to be released at TechEd Europe. More info about it here and here.
Visual Studio 2005 Beta Ready to Roll
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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The 2002/2003 betas really messed up my system and made installing the final nearly impossible without a reformat.
Microsoft makes the best developer tools around, bar none. Ever since the release of Visual Basic, they have taken productivity seriously and made tools that make RAD easy and run on 95+% of desktop systems (source: Google Zeitgeist).
Open Source tools like Emacs and vi are fun and all, but they really can’t match up to the power that a true IDE gives you. Some of the Java offerings are nice, but overall Visual Studio has much more maturity and isn’t saddled with slow performance, since it’s optimized for the platform it runs on. Font rendering and selection on Visual Studio are better than any competing package.
So overall, I do all of my Perl hacking in Visual Studio – and in fact, most of the developers I know do, as well. What does it mean for the Open Source movement that the preferred IDE for the leading OSS language is a “M$” product?
I would have to agree… Visual Studio rocks!
What power exactly does a “true” IDE give you? The ability to click an icon for a build? There’s nothing Visual Studio does that can’t be done using vim/emacs and make.
I’ve never understood the claims that Visual Studio increases productivity. It’s obviously a marketing gimmic. It’s a decent IDE, but it’s certainly not the be all end all of programming tools.
Perl absolutely is not the leading OSS language, and the fact that the developers you know use VS is no basis for it being the perferred IDE. To the contrary, I can make a counter claim; most of the developers I know wouldn’t touch VS with a 10 foot pole.
Name me another debugger that even comes CLOSE to Visual Studio’s. The best you have to offer is Insight (snicker).
Look, you can dislike Visual Studio all you want, but don’t attack other people for liking it, and don’t sit there and lie about it not being the preferred IDE for most developers.
If you want a DE you have kdevelop too which you probably havent even looked at.
“Name me another debugger that even comes CLOSE to Visual Studio’s”
wrong. GDB beats the pants of VS anyday when it comes to debugging. VS does it better in some other areas not debugging
..gotta confess that, although I use Linux at home for years and love it, I use VS.Net for development at work, and it’s damn good
I wish I had something like that on Linux too, I have high hopes for Monodevelop.
“Visual Studio has been proven time and time again to produce faster code than gcc. Is that also part of the “marketing gimmic?” Poor zealots.
”
buddy. gcc is a CROSS platform frontend to various languages. not even comparable
That whole rant was pretty stupid. First, I never lived in a dorm (though I do have a degree in Computer Science). Second, I do work as a programmer for a living. Third, the thing about IRC was just ignorant.
Now that we’re done with the personal attack, lets address your other points.
1. Vim has syntax hightlighting.
2. Vim has type completion.
3. You can run gdb inside vim (though that’s not really important.)
4. VS may be the best development environment for Windows, and I made no claim to the contrary; however, not everything is all about Windows.
5. Most perl development isn’t done using VS, and perl still isn’t the leading OSS language. It’s rather inconsequential anyway.
6. Graphics don’t make a bad tools good.
7. Vim has a graphical interface.
8. GUI’s aren’t the be all end all of interfaces (this has
nothing to do with feeling “l33t”)
9. There are plenty of other tools for visual “form layout” such as glade. Again, I don’t see this an important. Visual layout is often tedious and error prone. I’d rather write a description in a layout language and have a compiler do the work.
10. Not everything needs to run inside one giant program to be integerated.
11. Execution speed isn’t as important as good design. A fast compiler won’t make a bad algorithm good.
First of all, nice (as in “polite”) answer for a quite free attack, so congratulations..
I agree with your points (although, as I said, I like VS.Net a lot), but #9 I didn’t understand..
9. There are plenty of other tools for visual “form layout” such as glade. Again, I don’t see this an important. Visual layout is often tedious and error prone. I’d rather write a description in a layout language and have a compiler do the work.
As far as I could try, Glade sux big time..but anyway..if Visual layout is tedious, what makes writing the whole thing by code (especially when it comes to maintanance) less boring? And why is it more error prone?
– peace
Rodrigo
“As far as I could try, Glade sux big time”
glade has relative positioning which VS didnt do till the .net incarnations were introduced. similar stuff with qt designer and kdevelop.
“.if Visual layout is tedious, what makes writing the whole thing by code (especially when it comes to maintanance) less boring? And why is it more error prone? ”
depends on the code you write and your design methodology
Look, you can dislike Visual Studio all you want, but don’t attack other people for liking it, and don’t sit there and lie about it not being the preferred IDE for most developers.
We’re only talking about Perl development here. For Windows development, VS is obviously dominate. Though, I wouldn’t nessisarily argue it’s for the right reasons.
I didn’t attack anyone for using it, thank you.
“.if Visual layout is tedious, what makes writing the whole thing by code (especially when it comes to maintanance) less boring? And why is it more error prone? ”
depends on the code you write and your design methodology
Probably I’ll have to wait for an answer from the guy you asked, no offense but yours is a bit too generic..you can answer that to preety much any question, can’t you?
I mean, the guy I asked..sorry
For what it’s worth, I’ve noticed in a lot of demonstration videos and chats with developers on the .NET Show, Microsofties themselves often use Emacs or vi. For example, that recently posted video on MSH/Monad featured a code editor that was clearly not VS (I think it was vi). Also, MS has created MSBuild, a system to compile code based on a standardized XML instruction file. Why would they do that if they expect all coders to use VS.NET? In my own limited experiences, I’ve noticed that VS.NET 2002 has a few minor display bugs. But Intellisense definitely makes VS worth it. Does any other code editor have this?
As far as I could try, Glade sux big time..but anyway..if Visual layout is tedious, what makes writing the whole thing by code (especially when it comes to maintanance) less boring? And why is it more error prone?
The crux of the code is in the signal handlers anyway, so you are still writting the bulk of it by hand. Visual layout won’t help with that.
For the broiler plate initialization code, writing it out is boring. Unless the interface is really simple, I would rather just describe how the components are positioned in relation to eachother, and have a code generator do the alignment and layout for me.
Most visual systems generate horrible code that’s very difficult to read. This makes maintence and changes error prone. Glade actually generates an intermediate XML file from which C code is generated. All hooks into the interface are made with callback functions defined in separate files.
I think maintenance of the XML file is much easier. You don’t even need the visual component of glade to make changes.
I think everyone should be entitled to a free upgrade. 2003 is a WIP. :/ I’m glad I never saw 2002.
What power exactly does a “true” IDE give you? The ability to click an icon for a build? There’s nothing Visual Studio does that can’t be done using vim/emacs and make.
Oh god. People say the same crap about vim/emacs and Dreamweaver. Sure, everything can be done with these tools, but there’s also nowhere you couldn’t get to in a car that you couldn’t get to on foot, but that doesn’t mean I like to walk everywhere I go either.
If you want a DE you have kdevelop too which you probably havent even looked at.
I’m sorry, I’ve tried KDevelop (Slackware 9) and it couldn’t touch VS.NET with a 10-foot rubber dick.
VS.NET is nice and for multiple languages it can’t be beat(maybe Kdevelop has been making progess lately), but for C# development the MS guys should take a look(and i’m sure they have) at what the Eclipse and IDEA guys are doing.
Do some java development in vim and then eclipse and then get back to me about “what does an IDE give you”. This is 2004, not the 1970s. I love vim keybindings(eclipse has them), but its the keybindings are what makes vim great, not as a development environment.
So because gcc is crossplatform and multi-language somehow negates the fact that VC++ spanks GCC in fast code generation? I didn’t think so.
“So because gcc is crossplatform and multi-language somehow negates the fact that VC++ spanks GCC in fast code generation? I didn’t think so.”
i do. i find gcc to be a far superior compiler. with proper optimisation parameters the speed advantages if any is negated by all other advantages that gcc offers.
The crux of the code is in the signal handlers anyway, so you are still writting the bulk of it by hand. Visual layout won’t help with that.
But VS.Net makes links the signals with the controls automatically, right?
Most visual systems generate horrible code that’s very difficult to read. This makes maintence and changes error prone
Usually you don’t even have to look at this code, in the case o f VS.Net it puts it inside a region (folded code) called “Auto-generated code” or whatever, so I don’t see the problem. Any maintenance in this block is done visually.
OK it generates extra code of course, but unless performance is crucial, but usually the GUI layer don’t have this requirement, since it’s idle most of the time anyway.
Do some java development in vim and then eclipse and then get back to me about “what does an IDE give you”.
Why don’t you tell me instead of leaving me guessing.
This is 2004, not the 1970s.
I’m aware of the date.
I love vim keybindings(eclipse has them), but its the keybindings are what makes vim great, not as a development environment.
You’re confused. Vim is a text editor.
Let me fix my english, that was terrible…
OK it generates extra code of course, but unless performance is crucial, but usually the GUI layer don’t have this requirement, since it’s idle most of the time anyway.
should be
It generates extra code of course, but usually performance is not crucial on the GUI layer, since it’s idle most of the time anyway…
…I hope now it’s at least readable. I wish we had an “edit” option here
Usually you don’t even have to look at this code, in the case o f VS.Net it puts it inside a region (folded code) called “Auto-generated code” or whatever, so I don’t see the problem. Any maintenance in this block is done visually.
Hiding the code doesn’t make it go away. Every time you edit the interface, this region get uglier and uglier. I recently did a project with VS.NET using C#. Often, I would delete a component, but it would leave the signal registered. So, I’d have to go in and search for the offending line and remove it myself.
It’s not so much that I don’t like visual layout; it’s just that I think it’s poorly done in VS. Visual layout is good for creating the intial skeleton. I’ll agree with that.
Why don’t you tell me instead of leaving me guessing.
Intellisense(code completion), popup doc windows, parameter popup help, on-the-fly parsing(you don’t need to build), integrated debugger, class browsing, context-sensitive documenation, built-in refactoring, etc…
You’re confused. Vim is a text editor.
well duh, and that’s why it and emacs are stuck in the 1970’s console generation. Anything beyond basic text editing for these editors are bolted on hacks to make up for the fact that they are console editors at heart no matter what kindof toolkit is used.
“well duh, and that’s why it and emacs are stuck in the 1970’s console generation. Anything beyond basic text editing for these editors are bolted on hacks to make up for the fact that they are console editors at heart no matter what kindof toolkit is used.
”
thats the basic premise is which you are in and its totally wrong idea. vim and emacs are very extensible. emacs is in fact a lisp engine which can be coded to do everything you want. so its not 1970 or bolt in hacks. lets be less melodramatic here
It’s not so much that I don’t like visual layout; it’s just that I think it’s poorly done in VS. Visual layout is good for creating the intial skeleton. I’ll agree with that.
Yeah I agree the thing is quircky, and from time to time I do some “cleaning” myself. Anyway, I think that at the end of the day it’s worthy the trouble, comparing to writing the whole GUI through code (which makes beautiful code, but for complex GUIs or apps with dozens of forms is hell)
Hopefully things will improve with XAML, although I am not very happy about the idea of “XAMLizing” the web as MS seems to be planning to do.
thats the basic premise is which you are in and its totally wrong idea. vim and emacs are very extensible. emacs is in fact a lisp engine which can be coded to do everything you want. so its not 1970 or bolt in hacks. lets be less melodramatic here
Sure, emacs has elisp which is slow as dirt. Read the Xemacs mailing lists on a possible elisp engine rewrite and why elisp(in present form) isn’t suitable for many things, like complex background parsing. Vim has a built-in scripting language that is extremely limited, and the ability to use python which nobody seems to use.
Look at Emacs or Xemacs. It’s 2004 and you have to use an unstable, unapproved xft patch to get anti-aliasing. My point still stands that vim and emacs/xemacs are basically still console applications that aren’t productive for doing stuff like java or c# development. I still use vim for c/c++ development sometimes, but that’s about it.
My point still stands that vim and emacs/xemacs are basically still console applications that aren’t productive for doing stuff like java or c# development.
Banging my head around the JCP’s absurd dream logic of a server API on the one hand, or on the other hand painstakingly crafting applications that will never in a million years be portable, are not my personal ideas of what productive development is.
But hey, that’s just me. That’s why my Visual Studio .NET work is done in Perl.
”
Sure, emacs has elisp which is slow as dirt. Read the Xemacs mailing lists on a possible elisp engine rewrite and why elisp(in present form) isn’t suitable for many things, like complex background parsing. Vim has a built-in scripting language that is extremely limited, and the ability to use python which nobody seems to use.
Look at Emacs or Xemacs. It’s 2004 and you have to use an unstable, unapproved xft patch to get anti-aliasing. My point still stands that vim and emacs/xemacs are basically still console applications that aren’t productive for doing stuff like java or c# development. I still use vim for c/c++ development sometimes, but that’s about it.”
you are talking a thread from a fork of emacs to complain about it. that isnt very unbiased you know.
“It’s 2004 and you have to use an unstable, unapproved xft patch to get anti-aliasing”
” My point still stands that vim and emacs/xemacs are basically still console applications that aren’t productive for doing stuff like java or c# development”
thats your opinion. maybe you are unproductive with it and feel you need an IDE for java. you cant speak for the rest of us here.
when did good development meant anti aliased fonts?.
I have used both vi extensively, Visual Studio and Code Warrior too.
Here is what i think + point of each of them
Advantage of vi:
1. Small and efficient
2. Excellent keyboard shortcuts…makes typing very fast
3. Very good support of shell and you can do many operation like pattern search and replace etc very easily.
4. One editor for all language. Once you perfect Vi, you can code in any language and get same features, syntax highlighting, look and feel etc. etc.
I am sure there may be many others but these are the main for me.
Advantage of Visual Studio or Code Warrior
1. Browsing big source projects very easy. Function like go to definition of a function etc makes source code browsing so easy. You can simply with few clicks locate function definitions. This is particularly helpful if you are trying to understand someone else’s source code.
2. Syntax highlighting is available though not as good as vi for many languages
3. Intellisense (auto completion of structure members etc.), I got to tell you this is the best feature for me in Visual studio. I just truly love this one.
4. Excellent integrated debugger. ddd in linux world is there but it doesn’t match upto visual studio debugger ease.
5. Very easy to build projects like COM etc so that you don’t have to remember different compiler switches and you don’t have to write repetitive skelton code. Its all there for you. I like this because human should never do repetitive tasks because there is a computer for you to do that.
And again..i am sure there are many more advantage but the one i listed above are most important for me.
So you can decide which tool is best…I prefer to use Visual Studio for debugging and source code browsing and coding, but i never use their build system, because i like to know what flags my code is getting compiled with and i like to have full control on it.
For me an ideal world would be to have a Visual Studio like IDE with built-in editor which can work like vi (including bash or ksh shell support). I wish some company do that and i promise i won’t use a pirated copy of that
Eh, intellisense is overrated. Wake me up when VS.NET gets a REPL
FWIW, since there’s a lot of talk about IDEs and advanced editors, I should mention Source Insight. An absolutely fantastic (Windows only, but runs in wine pretty well) IDE that deals with a ton of languages. It’s not cheap, runs for $249, but totally worth it. I am now totally hooked on it, and unfortunately has me stuck using Windows & Linux for all my development needs (wouldn’t mind using my Mac sometimes).
And yes, I did pay for it.
http://www.sourceinsight.com/
> For me an ideal world would be to have a
> Visual Studio like IDE with built-in editor
> which can work like vi
Codewright for Visual Studio from Borland:
http://www.borland.com/codewright/codewright_dotnet/index.html
I don’t use visual studio and I was trying to really think why and I’ve come up with a few reasons.
It’s not free. I know this isn’t a major reason to most, and it’s not really to me either. I just resent having to dig out four CDs every time I want to use it.
Similarly, it’s HUGE. It’s an order of magnitude larger than any other compiler/editor combination out there.
It’s slow. It takes forever to start up and even when it’s running it’s not overly responsive. I know that a lot of people leave apps running all the time, but I don’t because
It takes a massive amount of memory. I prefer to use my memory for other tasks.
That said, I can understand why people like it. If it was my living and I used it all day long I’m sure I’d appreciate the little time savers here and there. I do like Intellisense or whatever it is that autocompletes after dots and gives function prototype information when the function is being called.
For my purposes, I prefer JEdit. It does most of what I want (including code browsing). I’m looking forward to CDT getting better so I can try that again.
Gallen, in todays world when you have 2+GHz machines with plenty of RAM, size should not be an issue. Do you ever complain about open office being slow? If yes, then you have right to complain about VS.NET, if not, then you are biased.
Also, features comes at a price and many people are willing to pay that price of RAM and processor to save them 100s of hours in development time. Since the day i use Visual Studio, i never had to go through help files to see function prototypes and that alone is one of the most time saving thing for me..but not the only one ofcourse.
VS.NET or VS6 is a very feature rich product.
CodeWright as Baris quoted can be integrated with VS.NET, this is how flexible it is…which other company will make things so easy for 3rd party companies and give them opportunities to sell their product like this?
Gallen, in todays world when you have 2+GHz machines with plenty of RAM, size should not be an issue. Do you ever complain about open office being slow? If yes, then you have right to complain about VS.NET, if not, then you are biased.
Also, features comes at a price and many people are willing to pay that price of RAM and processor to save them 100s of hours in development time. Since the day i use Visual Studio, i never had to go through help files to see function prototypes and that alone is one of the most time saving thing for me..but not the only one ofcourse.
VS.NET or VS6 is a very feature rich product.
CodeWright as Baris quoted can be integrated with VS.NET, this is how flexible it is…which other company will make things so easy for 3rd party companies and give them opportunities to sell their product like this?
“Gallen, in todays world when you have 2+GHz machines with plenty of RAM, size should not be an issue. Do you ever complain about open office being slow? If yes, then you have right to complain about VS.NET, if not, then you are biased. ”
you are wrong here. US is not the world. i am posting this from a 64 mb machine.
I haven’t used VS.net much, but have used other IDEs. I love IntelliJ
1) I can hit CTRL-N and type in a class name. It brings up a box and pattern matches the ones that match and select enter to get there. Saves tons of time navigating files.
2) I can put the cursor over a class and hit CTRL-B and go straight to it.
3) CTRL-SHIFT-N and I have a compile
4) I can copy a class (as a template) in 2 clicks
5) I can rename a class in 2 clicks and typing the new class name. It goes through all the code (including text files) and renames them to the correct class. And it’s much more than search and replace – it renames the file. It doesn’t mess with variable names. It’s smart about it.
6) It highlights unused variables for me.
7) If I need an import, it prompts me to do it automatically
8) It integrates with Ant, I just click the build task I want
9) It shows me when I have an coding error in real time (constant compilation)
10) I can find usages of a class/variable and click on the one I want in two clicks.
11) I can very quickly introduce properties, or any other code templates.
What’s REPL?
I wouldnt touch vi with a 20 foot pole