The Visual Basic Team : Lisa Feigenbaum

Visual Basic “How Do I” Videos

VBTeam — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:23:11 GMT

We’ve started two new “How Do I” videos series on the Visual Basic Developer Center. More to come, but here’s the latest!

Announcing Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2!

VBTeam — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:35:00 GMT

There were a lot of Microsoft announcements that happened yesterday! Many of these happened during Steve Ballmer’s keynote at the SharePoint Developers Conference (Video, Twitter). Here is the list:

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 and compatible versions of IronRuby/IronPython
Visual Studio 2010 Tools for SharePoint (Keynote, Dev Center)
New Visual Studio logo and brand (blue & purple infinity sign)
Visual Studio 2010 SKU Simplification to Professional, Premium, Ultimate
MSDN.com website refresh
Visual Studio 2010 Launch date on 3/22/2010

MSDN subscribers can download Beta 2 now! We will be opening up Beta 2 for everyone to download starting this Wednesday.

In honor of VS 2010 Beta 2, we have a lot of great content prepared. The following MSDN page aggregates our VB 2010 content.

Visual Basic 2010 Resources

We hope you will enjoy trying out the next release! We definitely look forward to hearing your feedback. Here are some places where you can contact us:

For Questions: Visual Basic Forums
For Bugs: Microsoft Connect
For General Observations or Comments: In the Comments to this Blog

Thanks!
Lisa

History of Microsoft Video: Bill Gates Talks about Altair Basic (Lisa Feigenbaum)

VBTeam — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:00:11 GMT

A few months ago, Tina started a great series on Channel9 that walks through the history of Microsoft, year by year:

The History of Microsoft

In the first episode, Bill Gates talks about what it was like to build Altair Basic. He actually shows the tape that represents the instructions for Basic! Lots of rare footage, and an entertaining show on how it all started.

Episode #1: The History of Microsoft - 1975

InfoQ Article on the Future of VB.NET (Lisa Feigenbaum)

VBTeam — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:02:00 GMT

For those of you who prefer text over audio, here's a recent InfoQ article that was released based on the podcast I did with Joe Stagner:

InfoQ: Is There a Future for VB.NET?

TechEd Video: Future Directions for Visual Basic, by Anders Hejlsberg and Jonathan Aneja

VBTeam — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 18:35:00 GMT

As part of the new VB/C# co-evolution strategy, Visual Studio Technical Fellow Anders Hejlsberg has broadened his role. In addition to being Chief Architect for C#, he now sets the direction for both the VB.NET and C# languages.

At TechEd, Anders participated in both the VB.NET and C# language presentations. In watching these sessions, you can see that the future trends and directions for the VB.NET and C# languages are now the same.

TechEd NA 2009 Session Video: "Future Directions for Visual Basic" by Anders Hejlsberg and Jonathan Aneja

In this talk, we discuss the future direction of the Visual Basic language both in the near and long term. Exciting features from the next release are demonstrated and discussed, including extensions to LINQ support, syntax simplifications, and improvements to the IDE. Larger trends that are likely to deeply influence the direction of the language are also covered, including dynamic binding, meta-programming, and scripting. Finally, we discuss how all these tie together into the roadmap for Visual Basic going forward.

The C# TechEd US video is not publicly available. For the corresponding C# presentation, please watch the following from PDC:

PDC 2008 Session Video: "The Future of C#" by Anders Hejlsberg

In this talk Microsoft Technical fellow and C# Chief Architect Anders Hejlsberg outlines the future of C#. He describes the many forces that influence and shape the future of programming languages and explain how they fit into C#.

Misfit Geek Podcast - Episode #2 "Does VB have a Future?" (Lisa Feigenbaum)

VBTeam — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 20:57:32 GMT

The Misfit Geek, Joe Stagner, asked me this provocative question in a recent episode on his new podcast series: "Does VB have a Future?". Tune in to hear more details on my answer, which of course is YES! :) We talk about plans for increasing the VB.NET content across Microsoft, the great innovations that are happening in VB.NET, idea sharing that's been happening between VB.NET and C#, the similarities and differences between VB.NET and C# developers, and more!

Episode #2 - Lisa Feigenbaum from the .NET Managed Languages Group

In this episode - The Misfit Geek talks with Lisa Feigenbaum from the .NET Managed Languages Group about Visual Basic .NET. Does VB.NET have a future ? Does Microsoft love C# more than VB.NET? Listen and find out.

Resources ......

VB Dev Center: http://msdn.com/vbasic
VB Team Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/vbteam
VB Team Blog (my posts): http://blogs.msdn.com/vbteam/archive/tags/Lisa+Feigenbaum/default.aspx
VB 6 Resource Center: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vbrun/default.aspx
VB 2010 Resource Center: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vbasic/dd819153.aspx

VB Entity Framework Samples Now Available (Lisa Feigenbaum)

VBTeam — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 08:45:00 GMT

There are a lot of great Entity Framework samples on Code Gallery that you can now find available in Visual Basic .NET. This was recently announced on the ADO.NET team blog. Browse through the list below and start downloading!

ADO.NET Entity Framework Query Samples (Download)

ADO.NET Entity Framework Query Samples is a small Windows Forms program which contains several basic Entity SQL and LINQ to Entities queries against that NorthwindEF Entity Data Model (a modified version of Northwind). Its goal is to help you learn the features of the different query languages available in the Entity Framework, and to let you visualize how the results and the translated store queries look like.

Transparent Lazy Loading for Entity Framework (Download)

This sample shows how to use code generation to add support for transparent lazy loading to Entity Framework. It includes code generator (EFLazyClassGen), supporting library (Microsoft.Data.EFLazyLoading) and sample test applications. EFLazyClassGen generates VB code that can be used instead of object layer generated by EdmGen or Entity Framework Designer. Generated code adds support for lazy entity objects that store their data in the form of flyweight objects. Object data is initialized on first access or navigation which means objects can exist without having non-key data loaded. http://blogs.msdn.com/jkowalski/archive/tags/EFLazyLoading/default.aspx has a series of articles that describe the library and its usage.

Persistence Ignorance (POCO) Adapter for Entity Framework (Download)

EF POCO Adapter enables Plain Old CLR Objects (POCOs) to be tracked using released version of Entity Framework V1. It consist of a code generator, supporting library and a test suite and examples. Entity Framework V1 programming interfaces are wrapped with corresponding APIs that work with POCO objects and do necessary translation between POCO and Persistence-Aware objects. See this blog post for more information about the project and its usage.

ADO.NET Entity Framework Documentation Samples (Download)

Description: The ADO.NET Entity Framework samples that accompany the Entity Framework documentation on MSDN. This is the download location for the CourseManager project that you create when you complete the Entity Framework quickstart. You will also find other Entity Data Model tools walkthrough projects as well as the samples described in the Entity Framework documenation.

ADO.NET Data Services IUpdateable implementation for Linq to Sql (Download)

Sample implementation of ADO.NET Data Services IUpdateable interface for Linq to Sql Data Sources. The easiest way to use this is to define a partial class for your DataContext type and provide the implementation there.

ADO.NET Entity Framework Extensions (Download)

The ADO.NET Entity Framework Extensions library includes utilities that make querying stored procedures, creating typed results from DB data readers and state tracking external data much easier in the Entity Framework. A sample application demonstrates several patterns using these utilities, including stored procedures with multiple result sets, materialization of CLR types, and registering entities in the Entity Framework state manager.

Try Out Dotfuscator in VS 2010 Beta 1!

VBTeam — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 04:03:43 GMT

The team at PreEmptive Solutions recently posted a great blog article that walks through all the latest features in VS 2010's Dotfuscator Software Services - Community Edition (previously known as Dotfuscator CE). Browse through the article to learn what's new, or download the beta to follow along in the IDE.

What's New with Dotfuscator in Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 by Bill Leach

VS2010 Beta1 Extensibility News (Lisa Feigenbaum)

VBTeam — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 19:47:50 GMT

I recently received this letter from the Visual Studio Extensibility team, that I thought would be interesting to readers of this blog. Whether you're building Visual Studio extensions or downloading them from others, there's news here for you.

News from the Visual Studio Extensibility team…

Are you building new tools to simplify your life or change the way people work? Check out the opportunities to create innovative extensions for Visual Studio 2010.

Examples of cool things you can do:

· Overlay rich metadata on top of the editor to bring new information to your fingertips

· Develop new project templates to accelerate your work (examples: New Project Dialog)

· Create innovative user interface elements using the WPF Shell

· Upload your extension to the Visual Studio Gallery (http://visualstudiogallery.com) to find it in the Extension Manager

Other things you should know:

· With v2 of the Visual Studio Gallery that went live on 5/14, you can use the Extension Manager to find products from the ecosystem from within Visual Studio

*(with Beta1, the Extension Manager will only surface extensions posted to the Gallery in the VSIX file format; Beta2 will include the MSI format)

· We just released the new SDK along with the new Shell redistributables, look for them at the dev center: http://msdn.com/vsx

· If you’re developing extensions for VS 2010, you’ll want to stay tuned to the dev center for more information

Fun things to help you get started – these can be found in the Extension Manager (Tools>Extension Manager): search for Editor Extensions

DemoDashboard Sample:

The DemoDashboard sample is a WPF “dashboard” designed for folks presenting demos in VS2010 to get real-time audience feedback via Twitter. Use this sample to give presentations, build your own widgets, etc. The wiki on the CodePlex site will give you all the info you need to get started. You can share the feedback you get with your followers on Twitter.

get it: Tools>Extension Manager

or from the Gallery: here

source: http://demodashboard.codeplex.com

RegEx Editor Sample

This sample was built to ease the your pain when working with regular expressions. It shows re-hosting of the editor in a window and provides a nice starting point for similar projects.

get it: Tools>Extension Manager

or from the Gallery: here

source: http://editorsamples.codeplex.com

Custom Intellisense Sample

This sample provides a custom WPF-based UI for Intellisense -- with databinding and other cool features. You might want to use it as-is, you might want to personalize it, you might want to build new features for it – the choice is yours.

get it: Tools>Extension Manager

or from the Gallery: here

source: http://editorsamples.codeplex.com

Image Insertion Sample

This sample is all about visualizing resources inline, it provides some nice transparency effects when you’re dragging an image from the solution explorer, and will automatically resize text to fit the image.

get it: Tools>Extension Manager

or from the Gallery: here

source: http://editorsamples.codeplex.com

FAQ:

What is the Extension Manager and how do I find it?

The Extension Manager in Visual Studio enables developers to discover Visual Studio Extensions from within the product itself. It consumes data directly from the Visual Studio Gallery, giving developers direct access to partner and community products that extend and enhance Visual Studio. If you have a free or free trial version of your product hosted on the Visual Studio Gallery, a developer will be able to download and install that product directly from within the IDE. (In Beta1, the in-product experience will show only extensions uploaded as a VSIX. In Beta 2 we will expand the in-product experience to also include extensions uploaded as MSI and reference links to other download sites.)

The Extension Manager enables a developer to install, upgrade, uninstall, enable, and disable extensions, making it easier to manage a portfolio of extensions.

To find the Extension Manager: Tools>Extension Manager.

So this means the Visual Studio Gallery can now host downloads?

Yes, we’re excited to announce that the Visual Studio Gallery can now host your downloads. Keep in mind that at this time the gallery does not include a commerce framework so we recommend creating a free or free trial version of your product that can be hosted on the Visual Studio Gallery. Of course we still support reference links for users who prefer to host their own downloads.

What else is new @ the Visual Studio Gallery?

Thanks to some great work by the MSDN team we’ve moved the Visual Studio Gallery to be part of MSDN. Some of the benefits:

· The new navigation model supports all types of Visual Studio Extensions and has sections for Tools, Controls, and Templates

· The integration with MSDN now gives users a chance to take advantage of a shared profile across all MSDN properties. Contributing to the gallery can enhance your MSDN reputation giving high quality contributors the recognition they deserve.

· Visual Studio Gallery contributions offer an optional discussion board to separate your reviews and give contributors an opportunity to post updates, respond to feedback, & discuss bugs.

· All entries include a usage chart to give contributors a sense of which of their products are getting the most traffic on the Visual Studio Gallery.

What’s the deal with the VSIX file format I’ve heard about?

Both the new Visual Studio Gallery and the Extension Manager work with .VSIX files, which is a new deployment model for extensions, similar to a renamed .ZIP file. This transition provides Visual Studio users a new low-overhead, reliable way to deploy Visual Studio Extensions. There’s tooling available to help you with this, and you can find instructions and other helpful tips at the Visual Studio Extensibility Dev Center: http://msdn.com/vsx.

Questions?

Email catherine.crim@microsoft.com

Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 Beta 1 Released Today! (Lisa Feigenbaum)

VBTeam — Wed, 20 May 2009 23:56:35 GMT

The public availability of Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 Beta1 was announced today on Jason Zander's blog:

http://blogs.msdn.com/jasonz/archive/2009/05/20/general-download-of-vs2010-net-framework-4-0-beta-1.aspx

Below are some resources to use as you download and start using the Beta.

Cheers,

Lisa Feigenbaum | Program Manager | VS Languages

VB, C#, and F# 2010 on MSDN

These are the best one-stop shops for information on what’s new in VB, C#, and F# in VS2010:

VB: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vbasic/dd819153.aspx

C#: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vcsharp/dd819407.aspx

F#: http://msdn.com/fsharp

Additional VS2010 resources

· VS2010 Download page

· VS2010 Walkthroughs

· MSDN Library: What’s New in Visual Studio 2010

· VS2010 Connect

· Forums: VS, VB, C#, F#

· Samples: VS, VB, C#, F#

· Language specs: VB, C#, F#

· IronPython 2.6 CTP for .NET 4.0 Beta1

· IronRuby CTP for .NET 4.0 Beta 1

Channel9 Interview with Luca Bolognese: VB.NET and C# Co-Evolution (Lisa Feigenbaum)

VBTeam — Wed, 20 May 2009 05:28:00 GMT

There was a great Channel9 video posted last week on the future directions of VB.NET and C# and how they are related. Charles Torre interviewed Luca Bolognese, who is currently the Group Program Manager for VB.NET, C#, and F#. Please see below for more details.

Luca Bolognese: C# and VB.NET Co-Evolution - The Twain Shall Meet

by Charles Torre

For most of their lifetimes, C# and VB.NET have evolved at their own pace and in their own ways (C# added iterators, VB.NET didn't. VB.NET added XML Literals, C# didn't. etc, etc...). Today, Luca Bolognese and team have embarked on a new approach to how .NET's premiere languages will evolve going forward: Co-Evolution. Essentially, new language/compiler features will be developed for each language concurrently. No longer will C# get new language construct X while VB.NET adds Y. They will both get X (and they will both get Y). Anders Hejlsberg, the father of C#, now oversees both languages and will make sure that language innovations are developed for C# and VB.NET at the same time.

I visited Luca recently to get a sense of the rationale behind this new co-evolutionary approach to two very different languages. Why is co-evolution important? Why not just have the languages, which target different demographics (do they?), evolve in ways that match the needs their users? What's the story here? What's next?

CodeRush Xpress Released Today! (Lisa Feigenbaum)

VBTeam — Fri, 15 May 2009 06:19:08 GMT

CodeRush Xpress is a FREE Visual Studio 2008 add-in containing 60+ refactorings, 7 editing features, and full support for C# and Visual Basic.

Download here

CodeRush Xpress includes the following features.

Duplicate Line
Highlight All References
Increase or Reduce Selection
Smart Clipboard Operations
Generate from Using (TDD)
Quick Navigation Window
Quick File Navigation

In addition, you receive the following refactorings.

Add Parameter
Create Overload
Create With Statement
Encapsulate Field
Encapsulate Field (read only)
Extract Interface
Extract Method
Extract Property
Extract XML Literal to Resource
Flatten Conditional
Introduce Constant
Introduce Constant (local)
Introduce Local
Introduce Local (replace all)
Inline Temp
Inline With Statement
Make Explicit
Make Explicit (and Name Anonymous Type)
Make Implicit
Method to Property
Move Declaration Near Reference
Move Initialization To Declaration
Move Type to File
Name Anonymous Type
Property to Method(s)
Remove Assignments to Parameter
Reorder Parameters
Remove Unused Parameter
Replace Temp with Query
Reverse Conditional
Simplify Expression
Split Initialization from Declaration
Split Temporary Variable
Widen Scope
Widen Scope (promote constant)
Widen Scope (promote to field)
Add Block Delimiters
Combine Conditionals
Compress to Lambda Expression
Compress to Ternary Expression
Convert to Auto-implemented Property
Convert to Initializer
Create Backing Store
Decompose Initializer
Decompose Parameter
Expand Lambda Expression
Expand Ternary Expression
Extract Method
Flatten Conditional
Inline Delegate
Inline Temp
Introduce Local
Make Explicit
Make Implicit
Move Type to File
Name Anonymous Method
Name Anonymous Type
Reverse Conditional
Split Conditional
Use String.Format
Use StringBuilder

CodeCast Episode 20: Biz Apps Team and VB with Beth Massi (Lisa Feigenbaum, Beth Massi)

VBTeam — Thu, 07 May 2009 09:26:41 GMT

Code Cast Episode 20: Interview with Beth Massi

This show's interview is Ken interviewing Beth Massi, Microsoft, program manager on Microsoft’s BizApps team in the VS group. Beth discusses her work over the past two years at Microsoft on the VB team and now on the BizApps team, and chats about some cool new features and content in Visual Studio 2010.

Topics

· Beth Massi (@ 27:28) – Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/bethmassi

Links

· VB Team Blog – http://blogs.msdn.com/vbteam

· VB Developer Center – http://msdn.com/vbasic

· VSTO Developer Center – http://msdn.com/vsto

· Beth Massi on Channel 9

Length: 42:00

Follow CodeCast at http://twitter.com/CodeCast

Ask Kathleen: Working with MEF (Lisa Feigenbaum)

VBTeam — Tue, 05 May 2009 18:34:21 GMT

MEF stands for Managed Extensibility Framework. MEF is a new .NET library that enables greater reuse of applications and components. Using MEF, .NET applications can be dynamically composed. Kathleen has a great article on MEF in last month's edition of Visual Studio Magazine. She explains what it is, how to use it, and outlines the application scenarios MEF is designed to enable.

Visual Studio Magazine "Ask Kathleen" Column: Working with MEF

CodeRush Xpress 9.1 Beta: 59 Refactorings, 17 Consume-first providers, and Much more! (Lisa Feigenbaum)

VBTeam — Tue, 05 May 2009 06:07:21 GMT

Very exciting news! Developer Express is coming out with a new version of the FREE add-in we all know today as Refactor!. The new product, CodeRush XPress, builds on Refactor! by increasing the refactoring count to 59! It also includes a host of other editing functionality, making it a much richer tool for all-around IDE productivity. Consume-first providers enable a different way of programming, whereby you can refer to variables, properties, classes, and other members before they are defined. Then the IDE tools insert the definition for you, so you don't need to write all that plumbing code, or break your thought flow. There are a number of navigation features in CodeRush Xpress such as Tab to Next Reference, CamelCase Navigation, Quick Symbol Navigation and File Navigation. There are also editing features, including Smart Cut, Smart Copy, Structural Highlighting, and Duplicate Line.

The best way to learn these features is to see them in action. Take a look at the VB.NET video here:

CodeRush Xpress 9.1: VB.NET Video

It's a great demonstration of the features and also very entertaining, with fun personalities Mark Miller & Dustin Campbell. For more information, please see the blog post by Mark Miller, Chief Scientist of Developer Express. And finally, here's a link to the download!

FREE DOWNLOAD: CodeRush XPress 9.1 Beta for VS 2005 and VS 2008