The Visual Basic Team : PDC2008

"Future Directions of Visual Basic" Interview with Paul Vick (Lisa Feigenbaum)

VBTeam — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 09:17:00 GMT

In this short 10min video, I interview language architect Paul Vick about what industry trends he would think about while designing the Visual Basic language. Some of these trends have motivated features in the next version of the Visual Basic language (VB 10.0), such as interop with dynamic languages. Others are things the team is currently thinking about, and plans to address in future versions. These include concurrency, and "opening up the black box" to expose the Visual Basic compiler as a service. These features were announced publicly at last week's Professional Developers Conference. The link to the short interview is below. To view the entire PDC session video, look here.

Future Directions of Visual Basic (video)

"Visual Basic 10: New Features" Interview with Paul Vick (Lisa Feigenbaum)

VBTeam — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 22:06:00 GMT

In this video, I interviewed language architect Paul Vick about what new language features are coming in the next release of Visual Basic. We talked about auto-implemented properties, collection initializers, statement lambdas, removal of the line continuation feature, and more. These features were recently announced at last week's Professional Developers Conference.

Visual Basic 10: New Features (video)

Download the CTP and Submit Your Feedback! (Lisa Feigenbaum)

VBTeam — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 11:48:00 GMT

The Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 Community Technology Preview (CTP) is now publicly available! It's time to try out the features that you've been hearing about from the PDC. :)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=922B4655-93D0-4476-BDA4-94CF5F8D4814&displaylang=en

Once you download the CTP, start Visual Studio and you will see a link to the CTP Walkthroughs from the Start Page. These walkthroughs are meant to guide you through the new features introduced in Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0. Microsoft team members are very interested to hear your feedback on these scenarios. A number of forums that have been created for you to give feedback on the CTP. The main forums for Visual Basic feedback are located here:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vs2010ctpvbcs/threads/

Finally, the central CTP feedback site is here:

https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/content/content.aspx?ContentID=9790

Thanks in advance for your consideration!

What to watch, as a VB Developer at PDC (Lisa Feigenbaum)

VBTeam — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 09:10:00 GMT

After you discover the PDC videos online, and you watch the Future Directions for Microsoft Visual Basic, you may wonder what other sessions this year's PDC has to offer for the VB developer... Lots!

Here's a list of PDC sessions related to the VB language and IDE:

Scott Guthrie's speech in the 2nd day keynote:

http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/KYN02/ (See 1hr 28min)
Scott showed the new 2010 editor in his presentation. He explained that it's built on MEF (the Microsoft Extensibility Framework) and WPF. He demonstrated the new extensibility model by showing how easy it is to build a cool add-in for visualizing XML comments. He also announced that the 2010 IDE will include features for TDD (test-driven development) and code focused development.

Panel: The Future of Programming Languages

http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/TL57/
In this session, Erik Meijer, Douglas Crockford, Gilad Bracha, Jeremy Siek, Anders Hejlsberg, and Wolfram Schulte discussed programming languages, in a panel format. Questions included:

What do you consider the most pressing problem in the industry today, and what is your language doing to solve it?
How important to the language is syntax?
Which is most important: the language, IDE, or libraries?
How much should languages be opened up for the community to contribute?
What is the difference between modeling and programming, or is there a difference?
Discuss the relationship between statically and dynamically typed languages.

TL54: Natural Interop with Silverlight, Office, and Python in Microsoft Visual C# and Microsoft Visual Basic

http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/TL54/
Alex Turner went deep with examples on how to interoperate between dynamic and statically typed languages, using the new language features in VB 10 and C# 4.0. He showed a variety of examples, including Silverlight, Office applications, and more.

TL10 Deep Dive: Dynamic Languages in Microsoft .NET.

http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/TL10/
Jim Hugunin, Partner Architect, presented the Dynamic Language Runtime and how it works with the new language features in VB 10 and C# 4.0, to allow interop between static and dynamic languages.

TL16 The Future of C#

http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/TL16/
Similar to the VB Futures session by Paul and Lucian, Anders presented a session about C# 2010 and beyond. The VB and C# talks both covered similar topics including variance, interoperability with dynamic languages, concurrency, and a future goal of exposing the compilers as a service. Both presentations also expressed a commitment to "co-evolution" of the VB and C# languages. Co-evolution means that going forward, there will not be a significant feature added to one language without simultaneously adding it to the other. One other interesting note for VB developers is that Anders showed named and optional parameters (long-time VB features) being newly added to C# in C# 4.0.

Beyond the languages sessions, there are many more topics to watch: ASP.Net, Windows7, Oslo and more. So get comfortable and start watching!

VB 2010 Language Features: The Channel9 Version (Lucian Wischik, Lisa Feigenbaum)

VBTeam — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 04:48:00 GMT

I recently blogged about the new VB 2010 language features announced at PDC, as well as the video available from Paul and Lucian's "VB Futures" session. Another way to learn about the new features coming out in 2010 is by watching the following Channel9 video with VB specification lead, Lucian Wischik.

Title: Lucian Wischik and Lisa Feigenbaum: What's new in Visual Basic 10
Abstract: In this demo-heavy video, Lucian shows off a number of new features in Visual Basic 10 including Collection Initializers, better Office integration, inline functions, parallel LINQ, simpler type handling, auto properties, and lots more.

Lucian Wischik and Lisa Feigenbaum: What's new in Visual Basic 10

http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Dan/Lucian-Wischik-and-Lisa-Feigenbaum-Whats-new-in-Visual-Basic-10/

PDC Dinner in honor of VB and C# MVPs (Lisa Feigenbaum)

VBTeam — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 04:30:00 GMT

Last week at the Professional Developers Conference, the VB and C# teams held a special dinner in honor of the VB and C# MVPs in attendance. ("MVP" = Most Valued Professional) It was a great opportunity to connect with folks, talk about the exciting things being announced at the conference, and even hear from Visual Studio General Manager Jason Zander! VB and C# language architects Paul Vick and Anders Hejlsberg were also in attendance, as were a number of other members from the team. Here are some photos from this special event.

I'm a VB! (Lisa Feigenbaum)

VBTeam — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 04:07:00 GMT

This year at the Professional Developers Conference, there was a new trend called PDC badges. To fully understand the buzz, check out the following blog post and Channel9 video by Adam Kinney (badge extraordinaire):

http://adamkinney.com/blog/366/default.aspx
http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Charles/Countdown-to-PDC2008-Badges-We-dont-need-no-stinkin-badges/

You might have heard references to the VB badges in the "VB Futures" presentation. Here's what they looked like:

What else can I say? I'm a VB! :)

Experience PDC 2008 whenever and wherever - for FREE! (Lisa Feigenbaum)

VBTeam — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 03:59:00 GMT

That's right... All sessions from last week's Professional Developer Conference in Los Angeles have been videotaped and made available for FREE on Channel9.

http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/

Check it out and enjoy the conference. :)

For photos, see the "PDC2008" tag on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=pdc2008&m=tags&s=int

TL12: Future Directions for Microsoft Visual Basic (Lisa Feigenbaum)

VBTeam — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 03:20:00 GMT

Didn't make it to the PDC? No problem. You can still check out the *hottest* presentation at the Professional Developers Conference this year, available publicly on demand! Paul Vick (Principal Architect) and Lucian Wischik (VB Specification Lead & Software Engineer) gave an awesome presentation on the Future of VB. The presentation included VB 2010 and beyond.

Title: Future Directions for Microsoft Visual Basic
Abstract: Hear language architect Paul Vick and specification lead Lucian Wischik discuss the future direction of the Visual Basic language. Learn about the new capabilities of the next version of the language, including additional LINQ features, syntax simplifications, and a host of other improvements. Also gain insight into possible future features, including meta-programming and scripting.

Here are the video links:
On Channel9: http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/TL12/
Direct link: http://mschnlnine.vo.llnwd.net/d1/pdc08/WMV-HQ/TL12.wmv

I've blogged the VB 2010 feature list here. This video above is the best way to see these features in action. Enjoy the video, and get excited for the future of VB!

Paul Vick (Principal Architect)

Lucian Wischik (VB Specification Lead & Software Engineer)

VB 2010 Unveiled at PDC 2008! (Lisa Feigenbaum)

VBTeam — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 02:34:00 GMT

Last week at the Professional Developers Conference, we made a number of very exciting announcements regarding the future of Visual Basic. Here is the list of VB 2010 features we've announced:

Collection Initializers. Initialize collections in fewer lines of code! Use the "From" keyword followed by a list, rather than successive calls to the Add method.

Dim y As New List(Of String) From {"hello", "world"}
Dim x As New Dictionary(Of String, Integer) From {{"hello", 1}, {"world", 2}}

Array literals. Express arrays more concisely. Whereas before you used to have to write New Integer() {1,2,3}, now you can just write {1,2,3}. Leave it to the compiler to infer the type of the items in the array! This can be very convenient wherever you use arrays.

2D array: {{1,0},{0,1}}
Jagged array: {({1,2,3,4}),({1,2})}

Statement lambdas. Visual Basic 2008 enabled lambda expressions. Now you can write multi-line lambda subs or functions as well!

Define a Sub or Function anywhere a delegate is expected.

Auto-implemented properties. Eliminate 8 out of 9 of the lines you write for boiler-plate VB properties today!

Expanded property syntax:
    Private m_Id As Integer
    Public Property Id() As Integer
        Get
            Return m_Id
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As Integer)
            m_Id = value
        End Set
    End Property
Auto-property syntax, new in VB 2010:
Public Property Id() As Integer
Auto-property syntax, with an initializer:
Public Property Id() As Integer = 100

Removal of the line continuation character. Underscores are no longer needed in the most common line continuation scenarios. Can you believe it?!?!

Attributes, argument lists, parameter lists, queries, and binary operators are some of the most common scenarios for an underscore. In VB 2010, you can now write these lines underscore-free!
What are we to do with all those unused underscores? Check out http://www.unemployedunderscores.com

Generic co- and contra- variance. Code that used to generate errors will now work error-free! See Lucian Wischik's blog posts on this new feature, which has been enabled by CLR 4.0.

No PIA. Deploy your Office applications without the bulky primary interop assemblies! VB 2010 will embed the Office types your application depends on, right into the app itself. No more need to deploy large PIAs.
Interop with dynamic languages. VB 2010 offers improved support to interoperate with dynamic languages. Dynamic and static languages each have their own benefits, libraries, and particular scenarios for which they are better suited. With VB 2010, you no longer need to choose just one! You can use dynamic languages directly from VB.Net as needed.

So many exciting features to look forward to! Stay tuned for more blog posts and videos which illustrate these features in more detail.