Today, I have the privilege of keynoting TechEd Middle East in Dubai for the second year in a row.
TechEd Middle East debuted last year, and this year the event has grown significantly. TechEd provides a nice opportunity to show off some of the cool work that teams at Microsoft do. I love connecting with customers and hearing how they're using our products, and for me, TechEd is a great way to get that.
I'm sharing several pieces of news with the live audience in Dubai that I want to share with you as well.
Visual Studio 2010 SP1
Visual Studio 2010 shipped about 11 months ago, and we continue to work on it and respond to customer feedback received through Visual Studio Connect. This feedback has guided our focus to improve several areas, including IntelliTrace, unit testing, and Silverlight profiling.
You can learn more about how we're improving Visual Studio 2010 on Jason Zander's blog later today. On March 8th, MSDN subscribers will be able to download and install Visual Studio 2010 SP1 from their subscriber downloads. If you're not an MSDN subscriber, you can get the update on Thursday, March 10th.
TFS-Project Server Integration Feature Pack
Also available for Visual Studio Ultimate with MSDN subscribers via Download Center today is the TFS-Project Server Integration Feature Pack. Integration between Project Server and Team Foundation Server enables teams to work more effectively together using Visual Studio, Project, and SharePoint and coordinates development between teams using disparate methodologies, such as waterfall and agile, via common data and metrics.
Visual Studio Load Test Feature Pack
We know that ensuring your applications perform continuously at peak levels at all times is central to your success. Yet load and performance testing often happen late in the application lifecycle. And fixing defects and detecting architectural and design issues later in the application lifecycle is more expensive than defects caught earlier in development. This is why we've built load and performance testing capabilities into the Visual Studio IDE itself.
Today, we're introducing a new benefit - Visual Studio 2010 Load Test Feature Pack - available to all Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN subscribers. With this feature pack, you can simulate as many virtual users as you need without having to purchase additional Visual Studio Load Test Virtual User Pack 2010 licenses. For more information regarding this new Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN benefit, visit the Visual Studio Load Test Virtual User Pack 2010 page.
Visual Studio LightSwitch Beta 2
Visual Studio LightSwitch offers a simple way to develop line of business applications for the desktop and cloud. Since the launch of Visual Studio LightSwitch Beta 1, we have seen over 100,000 downloads of the tool and a lot of developer excitement. In the coming weeks, we will make available Visual Studio LightSwitch Beta 2. With this second beta, we will also enable you to build line of business applications that target Windows Azure and SQL Azure.
In the meantime you can learn more about LightSwitch and follow the @VisualStudio Twitter account for announcements.
Namaste!
do you happen to know if the sp will also be published via wsus, and if so if on the 10th or lateron?
VS 2010 SP1 not available for download on MSDN Subscription as of now (9:55 Eastern). Will check back later. I was waiting for this to be released for a long time. Thanks for all the new features especially support for IIS Express and SQL CE 4.0
11:27 est and still waiting...
Is there a difference between the "load test feature pack" and the "virtual user pack"? The link on this blog post doesn't say anything about a "load test feature pack"...
Does SP1 enable true 64bit debugging for web apps or just WOW64 which is limited to 2GB of RAM?
This MS page implies that IIS Express won't be capable of true 64bit operation.
learn.iis.net/.../iis-75-express-readme
We need to debug MVC web applications running in true 64bit (not WOW) mode. This need arises because the applications use over 2GB of ram.
Currently, our options are to manually configure full IIS on local host or to use a 64bit build of CassiniDev ( cassinidev.codeplex.com ). At our company, we like the drop in replacement Cassini because it "just works" and projects don't require any special settings to get true 64bit debugging with Visual Studio. We always found it odd that we had to go create this build rather than it being built into VS 2010 and were hoping to see something like this become part of the SP1 release.
IIS Express seems to be the new preferred debugger, which seems neat since it is more like production IIS than Cassini. However, lack of 64bit support is a deal breaker, and we are concerned that upgrading to VS 2010 - SP1 will break our 64 bit Cassini projects and require a manual fix for each project.
You may also reach me directly via our contact info at http://maplarge.com for more details.
Every 6 weeks Google makes Chrome faster by a few percentage points, and sometimes they double the speed (the latest JavaScript engine update).
Once a year, Microsoft fixes a few bugs in VS.NET
Today’s JavaScript inside Google Chrome is laterally faster than C# / .NET 4.0, unfortunately it still does not do everything, but who knows, it is becoming better every few weeks.
We still use VS.NET because there is no alternative, some of the new code now explicitly requires Google Chrome, and once there is a good alternative to VS, will simply replace.
What I am trying to say, there is no need to make VS.NET faster, Windows Mobile 7 is maybe very good, but still losing market share, because normal people don’t trust Microsoft at all, you are about to experience the same with VS.NET
Good luck
Dear GT, you compare development IDE and browser - what those have in common that you are comparing them??? )))
@GT: Compare Chrome to IE 9. Today, IE 9 is faster than the latest released version of Chrome in terms of not only Javascript performance but also hardware acceleration. Google is an immature company compared to Microsoft. They are new to all these things and trying to impress people by trying to force people to think they are the "fastest" and make quick changes. For more than 3 years their gmail was beta! Their cloud infrastructure is way behind the stability and performance of Azure (Microsoft cloud) and their support compared to Microsoft is clearly bottom. You can't say a company is better just because it comes out with an update every few weeks for one product (Chrome). Andriod is a junk OS as well - Trojan horses all over the place and is the least secure mobile OS/infrastruture (when it comes to apps).
VS.NET - no matter what few lunatics and few dis-passionate VB6-Foxpro stuck developers say, is the best out there and there is virtually no company in the world to challenge that.
Don't even get me started about Windows Phone 7. You should not open your mouth unless you use it and experience it. People in the US don't use it because it has become Apple's stronghold at this time and people are locked in 2-year contracts). Look at Europe - different story all together!
@SAM, Nice propaganda :-) “or as Quadaffi will say, zinga zinga :-)” , good luck developing a large application that works on multiple computers using .Net and let’s say WPF :-)
@Kibonster open Google Chrome development tools and play with them (they are not fully completed yet, but working very well) then compare them to SLOZALEX tm (VS.NET), from less than one second in Chrome to hours in VS.NET (Microsoft: do less with more)
It is pointless to write here, I had to download VS.NET SP1 for the current project, and I remembered all my VS development problems, my next project is not based on VS.NET anyway.
@GT: What issues did you have with Visual Studio? What language did you use?
I still don't quite understand your comparison of Chrome and .NET. They are two different animals. Can you build reliable LOB with web technologies and Chrome?
Hi Sam,
I see you are still trying to win your MVP aren't you? Let's review your comments.
@Sam: Are you serious, Google is an immature company compared to Microsoft. What are you basing this on, search engine rankings or stock prices?
Sam wrote "For more than 3 years their gmail was beta!" Visual Studio and .NET are ALWAYS in BETA, at least THAT IS what that the product feels like. Microsoft calls their beta-ware, release candidates. Semantics.... They have not released a production quality completed development tool since VS 6.0.
Sam goes on to say. Andriod is a junk OS as well - Wow I can tell you never used an android or did your homework.
Microsoft and security should not be used in the same sentence. IE never meet a virus it didn't let through, it is like swiss cheese.
@Sam I am Still waiting for you to code out a business application in less lines of code then I can in VFP and just for grins lets mention some irrelevant factor like COST as well! So hmmm where is that app at Sam, still working on it?
MSFT is putting forth no innovation with VS and merely copying the open source community in a bloated fashion.
.Mark
dotbloat.blogspot.com
Do you know if the LightSwitch Beta 2 will work in combination with the Visual Studio SP1?
@GT and @Mark I completely am in agreement with both of you! @Sam how much Microsoft stock do you own?
March 10 over here in NZ, I guess we have to wait until the US wakes up, as usual :)
@GT: There is no propaganda. All facts. Don't need luck from you. Moreover, both .NET apps and WPF apps work on multiple computers that run Windows just fine. Don't just write bunch of lines as a troll.
@Mark Gordon: I don't need to win anything. Very happy where I am. As for you, we all know you are still stuck in the past. Sorry, only the invention of the time machine can save you. Well, may be even that cannot. Last time you needed bailout from your troll friends to save your "dignity". What do you want now? What is your point of writing endless nonsense on a .NET blog post? I don't work for you so I don't need to write any program for you. Take your nonsense elsewhere because no one cares what you "feel" about VS.NET or about IE. Hell, you are not even a developer or user of Microsoft products since you use Andriod and browsers other than IE. So, yeah, write as much bull you want to. who cares.
@Tom: 250. Probably that's more than what you own in total.