

Is there anything new in Visual Studio 2010? - coliveira
http://coliveira.net/2009/05/visual-studio-10-beta-is-available/

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dmlorenzetti
Oliveira's "new features in Visual Studio" are all programming languages it
now supports-- in other words, the development environment is synonymous with
the compilers bundled with it.

When I left Windows as a development platform (maybe 10 years ago), it took a
while to appreciate how deep the Unix philosophy of "compact, orthogonal
tools" really runs. Now, though, it would never occur to me to describe a new
compiler as a "feature" of the other tools I use.

I'm not sure that the difference in worldview really matters. I doubt that I'm
significantly more productive now than I was with Visual Studio. However, I do
feel incredibly straightjacketed whenever I have to go back to VS, as if that
monolithic view of software is imposing itself on me, rather than letting me
do what I want as I want.

~~~
wglb
It seems like adding features often reduces functionality or utility.

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citizenparker
It's a shame the author isn't really distinguishing between Visual Studio 2010
and v4 of the Common Language Runtime / Dynamic Language Runtime.

VS 2010 has some neat integration points but isn't really of interest to the
HN community - an in-depth look at v4 (particularly the DLR) however is worth
chatting about sometime.

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AndrewDucker
To be honest, what I'm looking forward to most in VS2010 is the revamped IDE,
and particularly the Call Heirarchy feature - which shows you the heirarchy of
everything your method calls into (and vice versa).

~~~
bep
The IDE is redesigned and now uses WPF. Also, the Historical Debugger sounds
intriguing.

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rbanffy
VS is required to develop software that will run on Windows (and that will
forever be handcuffed to Windows). I do not wish to develop such an
abomination, but many people won't have the same moral objections.

VS is Microsoft's "Office for developers" application. It's only reasonable to
tout the features os languages and compilers not available elsewhere from
Microsoft as features of the whole thing, because Windows developers have no
other option.

~~~
citizenparker
_VS is required to develop software that will run on Windows_

I'm sure the user base of the delightful open source #develop making Windows
apps will be sad to hear this, as will everyone using VS to develop against
Mono.

Which compilers are part of VS that aren't available elsewhere?

~~~
rbanffy
Mono is something weird. I confess I fail to understand what drives clever
people to hand over the design goals of their open-source project to
Microsoft. They are clever people doing an extraordinarily stupid thing. And
.NET apps are as much Windows apps as Java or Squeak apps are - they happen to
run on Windows and, if you care enough, you may be able to run them elsewhere
- and many do.

At least until the next broad Microsoft patent-infringment lawsuit. Mono is
toxic in that regard - Microsoft may decide to start a FUD campaign anytime
they want and Mono just gives them a huge stick. If that's not a dumb thing to
do, I am not sure what would qualify.

As for the compilers, I am quite sure you cannot obtain any Microsoft compiler
that is sold as part of VS without at least some part of VS. You can run them
from the command line (if you could call cmd.exe a command-line) and you can
download them from Microsoft for free, but saying that they are available
"elsewhere" is a bit of an overstatement.

~~~
trezor
You obviously have _no_ idea what you are talking about and if anyone is doing
FUD, it would be you.

The .NET compilers costs absolutely nothing and are part of the free (as in
beer) .NET SDKs you can download whenever you feel like.

As for mono: Microsoft has actively supported the community, helped out with
getting moonlight (the opensource Silverlight implementation) working, and as
part of the Silverlight package you have IronPython, IronRuby and the DLR
(dynamic language runtime) which are all largely opensource.

Even if Microsoft _wanted_ to bail out at this point, it would be too late.

Not to sound rude, but I think you had _one_ thing right in your comment:
"Mono is something weird. I confess I fail to understand". How about the
simple explanation? The .NET framework (despite the silly name) is a solid
framework, C# is a good language, the CLR is sexy and people want to use it on
more platforms than just Windows?

~~~
jksmith
Why do you think that MSFT's current behavior toward mono will continue in
perpetuity? If mono ends up negatively affecting profit motive, then MSFT will
attack with full force, as it should. If mono doesn't have some security in
writing, then mono may be vulnerable - and that's a perfectly fair issue for
commercial developers to concern themselves with.

There's all kinds of ways to spin the mono future. One might be that, as MSFT
realizes the OS is being devalued, let mono become popular, then work a
licensing deal after litigation. How is this different from Novell caving in
on Suse?

~~~
trezor
I'm pretty sure Microsoft themselves having contributed to mono projects would
invalidate any such lawsuit. Also, Microsoft submitted the whole common
language infrastructure (CLI), the core of .NET, to ECMA as an open standard.

So, unlike most things Adobe and Apple, Microsoft has actually made the .NET
infrastructure open, but you don't see people decrying people for wasting
their development efforts there.

So if that's a perfectly fair question, the FOSS world should immediately
start reviewing pretty much all efforts not currently centered around POSIX,
OGG and Theora as possibly wasted.

~~~
rbanffy
"I'm pretty sure Microsoft themselves having contributed to mono projects
would invalidate any such lawsuit"

No. It wouldn't. And, most of all, it has no effect on where they take .NET in
the future. If they decide to break Mono by moving the reference platform and
to make Mono developers run in circles, they can. If they decide to sue
_users_ of Mono programs, they pretty much can, unless at least a significant
part of the code being used is licensed in a patent-litigation-proof license,
which, I gather, is not the case.

The whole case is that you just have to trust Microsoft to, for the first time
in its history, act in a civilized way. You may judge it's an acceptable risk
for you and your users, but I just don't think that way.

~~~
trezor
_If they decide to sue _users_ of Mono programs, they pretty much can_

Now you are pretty much talking bullshit. If this is actually somehow allowed
in the US, that is a failure in the US justice system and for the remaining
95% of the world unrelated to actual reality. With all this time spent trying
to avoid lawsuits, I sometimes wonder how people in the US manage to be
productive at all.

Anyway, your arguments seems to boil down to that any platform which isn't
under 100% open source control is a risky investment and that it's not worth
it. If that is your point of view, I can respect that, but at the same time
you have to accept that puts you in a _very_ narrow window with regard to what
markets and platforms you can develop for.

To me, from _my_ point of view, that's just too deep into Stallman-land and
not a viable strategy in the real world.

~~~
rbanffy
"that any platform which isn't under 100% open source control is a risky
investment"

No. Not at all. I have invested a lot in AIX, DB2, Oracle and Solaris over the
years. It's just that handing the reference to what your product should be
compatible with to Microsoft and then trying to compete against them in one of
their cash-cows is pretty much the ultimate stupid thing one could try.

Microsoft has been caught more than once in unethical and illegal activities,
so, why take the risk? Are the APIs so far superior than anything else around?
Is it working? Is it bringing a meaningful flow of new cross-platform
software? Are the languages so wonderful nothing else comes close?

And yes: the US patent system is deeply flawed. And so is he justice system
that allowed MS to abuse its monopoly numerous times. I can only hope both get
fixed because the US is too an important market to ignore. It seems the EU has
a good grip on the situation and maybe the US can follow its leadership on
this.

