
Visual Studio '11' Announced - aaronbrethorst
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2012/02/23/introducing-the-new-developer-experience.aspx
======
blackhole
I'm sorry, but I use color to locate things. This, to me, is a disaster. If
this isn't a problem for other people, fine, but it's a problem to me. A
better solution would have been to use less color and desaturated tones rather
than simply going to full on black and white, which serves only to rob the IDE
of potential visual cues. This is like using a cannon to kill a bird. Just
because they overcolorized VS2010 for no apparent reason doesn't mean they
need to overcompensate in the opposite direction. I can't use this until
someone comes up with color-based icons for it.

~~~
forgotAgain
I wonder if Microsoft isn't doing this as a subtle way to get developers
mindset away from "old style" window's applications and into a Metro mindset.

~~~
mattmanser
I doubt it, it's just a redesign by people who aren't very good. Metro, otoh,
looks good.

Even the blue they've chosen conflicts with the gray.

It just looks shit.

------
AshleysBrain
Developers beware: Visual C++ 11 cannot compile executables that work on
Windows XP at all:

[https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/...](https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/690617/bug-
apps-created-with-crt-and-mfc-vnext-11-cannot-be-used-on-windows-xp-sp3)

C++ devs may want to skip this release and just go for Visual C++ 12 when it's
out, since by then hopefully XP will be ignorable.

~~~
marshray
OMG that's insane.

Well, our Windows builds may just have to move from 2005 to 2010 and plan to
be stuck there for the forseeable future.

I was hoping I could use a C++11 compiler for Windows development someday. But
it's probably more likely that I'll stop developing for Windows before my
company's customers stop running XP.

~~~
jodrellblank
It is not "insane", XP is three years past the end of official support and
only two years until the end of extended support. It's two generations old and
possibly three by the time this is released.

[http://windows.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/products/lifecycl...](http://windows.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/products/lifecycle)

XP doesn't run IE9 either, and it came out ages ago. XP is _old_ now.

~~~
16s
I know you mean to point out how old and crufty XP is (and that is true), but
if you stop and think about it... it's really a testament to C++ and Microsoft
engineering that it has done so well for so long.

~~~
marshray
Well that, and

* the long gap between XP and Vista

* that it was still selling on new netbooks until quite recently, and

* the leveling off of CPU performance.

------
oleganza
Interesting thing about VS and Xcode is that they do not really try to compete
with somebody or fight for attention. Both Windows and Mac/iOS developers
would use less useful tools if they still let them make products for the
popular platforms. JetBrains, Borland and others are fighting for attention
and developers' love. They must try really-really hard to make people choose
an alternative to the official tools.

So both MS and Apple teams may focus on what is "right" and avoid feature
bloat in UI, avoid quick and dirty solutions etc. Yes, they must include some
features quickly and efficiently to allow support for some new APIs in the new
products. But the overall design and fit and finish is free to define however
they want. They can spend time making it right and redoing it how they please.
They have resources and expertise for that and they don't need be in a
stressing "competition" mood.

I'm really disappointed by what Microsoft did with Visual Studio. They have
great technology - great language, great compiler support and integration with
editors. But the way it is all presented and organized is all boring mess of
panels and tons of icons. They even understand all the icons are heavy for
eyes, but instead of _rethinking_ the design, they simply ask "40 existing and
36 new VS users" how do they like monochrome versions.

Apple's Xcode 3 was also a messy window/panel cluttered tool like many others.
Many still considered it lighter than any other complex IDE, but it was fairly
cluttered on its own. Next version, Xcode 4 was not designed by "asking
developers". Developers want a pink pony and all the features in one click.
Xcode 4 was _designed_. They made priorities and straightened UI so much it is
now Plain Straight. One window, three panes, 7 buttons on toolbar. Just by
learning a single screenshot with both sidebars opened, you already know how
to navigate 80% of the time. It is crucial. You don't have to read huge manual
to learn more and more useful things. They all are discoverable over time.
Most important things are more visible, others are discovered over time.

Apple and Microsoft are rarely in position to throw old stuff out and replace
it with brand new in their actual products that make money. Windows, Mac, iOS
all have its legacy which must be dealt with. But UI for developer tools are
different and Microsoft has no excuse not to make it interesting. Unless, of
course, they don't want to maintain their own engineering culture.

~~~
maximilianburke
XCode 4 may have been designed but it wasn't designed well. It has no mixed
source/disassembly views. Hovering over the debug icons say that pressing
control and clicking "step into" will step a single instruction. But this
isn't a sticky setting, so if I press control and click "step into" twice, the
first time will step an instruction and the second will perform a source line
step.

It also crashes. A lot.

When doing iOS development I find myself switching between GDB and LLDB
regularly, as LLDB gives some great context information but it crashes and
takes out all of Xcode on a fairly regular basis.

Xcode is terrible. It's really quite sad that a company that prides itself as
much as Apple does on its user experience is able to let something so unusable
out its doors. Xcode 3 may have been messy but it was many times more usable
because it was many times more stable than Xcode 4. I don't really care how
pretty my tool interfaces are but rather how well they work.

~~~
watmough
The stability will get there eventually.

Xcode 3 got a lot better over the years.

~~~
mattgreenrocks
But it isn't encouraging that they'd push the release out with what seems to
be blatant crashes. It sort of feels like the developers are left out to dry
and they have to soldier on. Personally, I rely on git to make sure I don't
screw up my project/code to the point where the IDE crashes repeatably. And
that's unacceptable.

It's called integrity. And although XCode has it from a design sense, it
doesn't appear to have it in the engineering department.

------
brosephius
Maybe it's just me but I like the "Strong use of color" better. I find it hard
to quickly find the tool button I want when they're all monochrome. I'm sure
I'd get used to it, but I can't really say the colors in the GUI are my
primary distraction when I'm coding...

~~~
ajross
Some of us grognards would argue that if you're having trouble finding
buttons, they really shouldn't be on the screen at all. Seriously, why must
IDEs look like this? Why is there screen space dedicated to documentation when
I'm not reading docs?

Why are there multiple horizontal bars at both the top and bottom of the full-
screen display when the _single most important activity in the app_ is
scanning very long text files often dozens of times "higher" than the screen.
Seriously, every line of text is precious, why must we steal them from the
editor with a title bar _and_ a menu bar _and_ a tool bar (thankfully they now
have only one toolbar) _and_ a tab bar _and_ a status bar. Why does anyone
think this is a good design?

~~~
city41
I'm no longer a .NET developer. But I was for about a decade and I got to the
point that I removed all toolbars from Visual Studio. I had nothing but the
text editor and solution explorer (docked and only opened when needed). I'm
surprised to read many comments here where people talk about finding icons and
getting lost in the toolbars. Power uses of tools like Vim, Photoshop,
Illustrator, etc use the keyboard for everything, I'd have thought most VS
power users do that too.

~~~
contextfree
You can easily toggle "no chrome mode" with Shift-Alt-Enter, btw.

~~~
city41
I no longer have VS available to check. Is that "no chrome mode" or really
just "fullscreen" mode? I seem to remember this mode made alt-tabbing to other
apps problematic for some reason. Maybe I'm wrong. I also never maximize my
windows, which I believe is another reason I didn't like this mode.

~~~
contextfree
You're right, it's fullscreen, I actually didn't entirely realize this. (I was
sort of thinking of OneNote which has its own "full window for content" toggle
which _isn't_ fullscreen)

Windows in VS10 behave oddly in general around alt-tab and other things, I
haven't managed to form a mental model of how/why they do.

------
manuscreationis
These are some nice concepts, but this is entirely overbaked (in my opinion).

I don't find the colors of VS2k10 "distracting" me or making it "difficult" to
find things at all. I am glad, however, they're removing a bunch of those
useless buttons by default (of course you can always remove them yourself, but
I digress).

I can appreciate what they're attempting here, but why go this far without a
road back? If you're going to completely overhaul the look and feel this much,
and go so far as to let people choose between 2 different color schemes, why
not at least give people the option of using the classic scheme, or allow for
custom user developed schemes (which would invariably give rise to a few
"classic" ones anyways). Maybe they mentioned this and I missed it... I hope
thats the case.

I've always felt the U/I got better with each iteration since the original VS,
but this is the first time I'm not excited to get my hands on the next version
based solely on the look and feel.

Of course, I'll have to reserve final judgement for when I actually get my
hands on it.

~~~
lordlicorice
You can already set (and share) color schemes for what really matters- the
code editor. As long as I get to keep my editor colors, I'm sure it will be no
big deal to get used to any changes to the chrome.

~~~
manuscreationis
Yea, but that's not really what I'm talking about.

I mean purely the shell of the U/I - Although it would be good if both of
those things were configurable in the same way, so you could truly share a
completely customized and tuned color scheme

------
thom
For those annoyed that this just focuses on colours, here's some C++ features
of VS2011:

<http://herbsutter.com/2012/02/23/vc11-beta-on-feb-29>

~~~
CedarMadness
All that C++ support and they still don't support C99...

~~~
pjmlp
Microsoft does not care about C99. C++ is the official systems programming
language in Windows, as has been communicated several times.

C89 is good enough for writing device drivers, the only place Microsoft still
advises to use C instead of C++.

As for C99 support it is not as if Microsoft would be the only one not
supporting it.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C99#Implementations>

To be honest I think C99 and C11 will most likely go unnoticed by all major
compiler vendors.

~~~
cygx
Are you looking at the same table I am looking at? All major compilers except
MSVC 'mostly' support C99...

~~~
pjmlp
Yes I am.

Have you validated what 'mostly' means?

Let me tell you that each compiler manufacturer has a different dictionary to
look up the meaning of 'mostly'.

If a standard is not 100% implemented across compilers, no one can be sure to
use it if portability is a concern.

This is exactly like the time where most databases 'mostly' implemented the
SQL '92 standard, and then the code had to be full with DB specific
workarounds.

~~~
cygx
> Have you validated what 'mostly' means?

Have you? Real question - I'd be very interested in that.

The list of (allegedly) fully compliant compilers is not very impressive (IBM,
PGI, Sun), but in practice, you're aiming at C99 support to the level of GCC,
which will get you - in addition to GCC and its (supposedly) drop-in
replacement Clang - AMD and Intel (I _think_ ICC has C99 support to GCC level,
but there are probably discrepancies in the feature sets)...

~~~
pjmlp
In many of our projects we are not able to use GCC and are forced to use the
official vendor's compiler for the platform.

So it might be not that easy for certain companies to use your suggestion.

As far for what 'mostly' means. I have been coding since the K&R days, so I am
aware that even when things are supposed to be 100% the same among C
compilers, reality speaks otherwise.

------
bwarp
Sure it looks all pretty, but have they made it faster and more reliable?

VS2010 is just damn slow and falls over on me at least 2-3 times a day which
is not acceptable. When you pay for 25 VS2010 premium licenses with MSDN on
top of your gold partner allowance, you expect it to work.

~~~
MartinCron
_VS2010 is just damn slow and falls over on me at least 2-3 times a day which
is not acceptable._

Non-aggressive suggestion: think you've got something screwy with your system,
I've had VS Fall over on my 2-3 times in the last several years of heavy use.
It doesn't have to be that unstable. Also, with an SSD and enough RAM, I don't
feel like I'm ever waiting on VS anymore.

~~~
elemeno
I'd second that. In the past five years (or at least since VS 2008), I can
remember VS crashing on me maybe half a dozen times. That's with spending most
of my time working on pretty large multi language projects.

For context, I don't use any extensions other than (sometimes) ReSharper and
Tortoise svn/git/hg.

~~~
brunomlopes
Mine doesn't crash on Web projects, but can't work for a couple of hours on a
Windows Phone 7 project without it going _boom_.

I think most of it works fine and dandy, but some parts can be quite
sensitive.

~~~
MartinCron
Fair enough, I haven't worked on any Windows Phone 7 stuff yet, so it may be
fatally brittle there.

------
baconner
Someone over there has clearly been reading tufte although I think in some
cases (the new all gray icons) they've gone overboard.

Overall the strategy of moving the interface into the background and the
content you're building into the foreground is great. I want my eyes drawn to
what I'm building not 50 other ui elements. The metro style icons IMO are a
bit hard to distinguish from eachother but anything I used regularly I'd have
a keyboard shortcut for anyway and the new command search handles the rest. I
think they're on the right track.They're minimizing any mental activity that's
taking focus away from actually coding and that's a good thing.

------
km3k
It looks like a monochrome Visual Studio 6. I don't really see how this is an
improvement.

------
mariusmg
They still didn't get their priorities right. Nobody care about those shitty
monochrome icons. MAKE THE DAMN THING FASTER !!!!!

------
huhtenberg
I might be an old fart (close to 20 years of Windows programming), but all I
see is bloat. A compiler, a linker, a debugger. An editor with syntax
highlighting, Ctrl-F and Ctrl-H. That's it, this is pretty much all that I
ever use in VS. Even plausibly useful features like Intellisense and IDE
macros end up being more of a hindrance than a help.

What am I missing? What is there in the remaining 80% of VS that I am not
using that is of practical value? Serious question.

~~~
fryguy
Go to definition, Find all references, and variable rename are far superior to
ctrl-f and ctrl-h because they operate on symbols rather than strings. When
you highlight a variable and ctrl-f for it, you're going to find the 30 times
the function is used (if it's even in the same file), whereas hitting f12
takes you right to the definition of it. Symbol renaming is much safer, since
you don't have to worry about renaming "i" to "itemIndex" when a loop gets
more complicated, and having misc things blow up in your face. Intellisense is
really great when you're not entirely sure what order parameters go in, since
it shows you what's important as you're typing. I've found them extremely
valuable when working on large projects with multiple team members, since a
lot of the times I won't have worked on the functions I'm calling to know them
intimately.

~~~
huhtenberg
Thanks.

------
pilif
Tangentially related: even in the redesign they manage to represent the save
action using a floppy disk of all things.

I wonder whether that is ever going to change as people forget what floppys
were or whether this will just be the canonical icon for save even far into
the future when nobody will really know that the icon does indeed have its
roots in a long forgotten real-world object.

~~~
sharjeel
I'm perfectly OK with it. Floppy has become the standard icon for "save"
action. People have learnt it while using different applications and have got
used to it.

Changing it would need more learning and cognitive efforts by users.

------
MartinCron
Reading this article and the comments made me realize that I _never ever use
the toolbar buttons_ and I only sometimes use the menu. For all of the main
things (build/debug/run, cut/copy/paste, save, close window, etc.) I either
use the Visual Studio or ReSharper keyboard shortcuts.

So I've turned the toolbars off and now have a few hundred more vertical
pixels to work with. Nice.

~~~
bjg
FYI if you want to get ride of the menu you can also have it hide.
[http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/bdbcffca-32a6-...](http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/bdbcffca-32a6-4034-8e89-c31b86ad4813)

It's nice, especially in full screen mode.

------
ConstantineXVI
Since they're making such a big deal on the new styling; would anyone know the
rationale they had for making VS2010 purple?

~~~
bitwize
Gray got boring.

~~~
Derbasti
Gray is the new Purple

------
jamesaguilar
I like the new decolorized look. The colors don't seem to add much and are a
bit noisy.

~~~
andypants
Colours help to differentiate between icons. It's much easier to differentiate
between and identify two differently coloured icons at a glance, than two
monochrome icons.

~~~
jamesaguilar
To me it looks like they've put more effort into differentiating the shapes
now that the icons aren't colored. Personally I think the increased contrast
makes up for it -- the shapes in the monochrome icons are much more visible to
me. I'd love to see their usability studies though. Perhaps you are right.

------
nxn
By removing all the borders/bars, and other useful grouping elements, they've
made the application feel cluttered -- too many unrelated things share the
same z-index. For example, the pinned panel titles, side panel buttons,
inactive tabs, and toolbars are all on the same background. Considering how
unrelated these things are in comparison to each other, I don't think they
should share this same "zone".

I'm not saying a design like that can't be done, but the only way I can think
of making it work would involve much better use of the grid system and much
better spacing than what they have in these pictures. Considering how limited
they are for space though, I think they were just better off with the 2010
look.

------
DanI-S
I don't know the when we arrived in this new world, where thoughtful design is
king, but I am glad to be here.

------
yarone
Still using a floppy disk to represent "save". Wondering when will this end...

~~~
huhtenberg
But what would you replace it with that is equally easy to recognize?

~~~
cjensen
Does anyone really use "save" so infrequently that they have not memorized the
keyboard shortcut? There's a reason no apps on OS X have save icons...

~~~
flomo
They mentioned they dumped the clipboard buttons because nobody uses them. I
would guess the need with Visual Studio isn't so much "Save" but "Save All",
which also updates various project files. (I don't know the Save All shortcut
off the top of my head - I almost always use the toolbar button.)

~~~
lywald
SaveAll is Ctrl-Shift-S on most programs.

------
eblackburn
VS seems to be going the way of Office, only the 80% of features that nobody
uses are also often inferior to alternatives.

The bloat associated with VS is utterly unnecessary, I think it's an
opportunity missed that VS hasn't been peeled right back to a glorified
Notepad++ with the VS Gallery providing the mechanism to add / remove
additional features from MS and from third parties.

------
dubya
I think it is hilarious that the 3.5" floppy disk is still an icon. What does
a pair of them would mean? Copy disk? Commands you use every time you use a
program don't really need an icon. Is there any overlap between the set of
people who recognize the disk icon and the set of people who click in a
toolbar to save a file?

------
dav-id
It looks like they are implementing the functionality from a lot of the
plugins available for VS2010 and making them standard functionality.

My biggest issue with VS2010 is the amount of memory it consumes. I hope they
do something about that or some how let me disable functionality that I don’t
need so I can reduce the footprint.

Some of the icons in the screenshots do in my mind look to be an improvement
whilst others are so totally different that I am sure will frustrate the hell
out of me until I have adjusted.

I know those screenshots are to show off as many widgets as possible but is it
useful to show the tool with about 10% screen real estate dedicated to actual
code.

~~~
recoiledsnake
>My biggest issue with VS2010 is the amount of memory it consumes

RAM is so cheap now that there is really no excuse for developers to skimp on
it. I would rather hope that they work on improving the product in other areas
than optimize it for 1GB. If there are leaks however, they need to be
addressed.

~~~
to3m
VS2010 is still a 32-bit app. This puts a limit on just how much RAM it can
use. I for one might be a little less alarmed by (though probably no more
happy about) its carefree attitude if it were a 64-bit app.

~~~
kazing
I have not heard of a single VS instance taking over 4GB of RAM. The only time
you'll get into trouble is with multiple VS instances - and there 40 bucks for
another 4GB of RAM pay off instantly.

~~~
brass9
While VS itself doesn't consume large amount of memory, Resharper is a
voracious memory eater. I used to regularly encountered OOM exceptions - not
due to insufficient memory, rather because of excessive .net memory
fragmentation brought about the holy marriage of VS2010 & R#. IIRC, this type
of memory problem did not occur in VS2008 too frequently. Recent versions of
R# have ameliorated the problem to a large extent however.

------
Lagged2Death
So the ribbon UI will _not_ be used in the next generation of what is arguably
MS's most technical and deadly-serious product. They're sticking with old-
fashioned menus and non-paging toolbars.

I think that's really telling.

------
callumjones
I really don't understand the use of uppercase letters to denote sections, is
this the Metro influence and have they taken it a bit to far?

It really looks out of place surrounded by content that is Capitalized.

------
test83562
I still use VS 2008 on WinXP. VS 2010 is much slower because it's based on
WPF. I hate having to wait 0.1-2 seconds for text editor to respond. Also VS
2010 IDE feels non-native.

------
nathanscott
This is how I know this isn't genuinely a developer tool
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3628696>

~~~
achanlon
I would point out that line numbers are an option in VS. Secondly, I believe
we are getting to a point where giant monolithic files should be the exception
rather than the rule. Lastly, the ability to right click on a symbol and go
directly to it's definition, see a clickable list of all its uses, and the
fact that all warnings/errors are clickable means that the line numbers are
less-important frankly. I still have mine on always but I rarely use them.

------
pkamb
Do new tabs still open to the left of the current tab? Drives me absolutely
insane.

~~~
kprobst
Tools -> Options -> Documents

Check "Insert documents to the right of existing tabs".

~~~
pkamb
But why is it the default? Why not match the existing tab behavior of every
web browser?

~~~
kprobst
Actually both IE and Firefox now (I think) insert tabs to the left. I don't
know why it became a 'thing' at some point, I dislike it enormously as well.

~~~
joshuacc
I just tested this, and both IE9 and FF10 insert new tabs to the right in
Windows 7.

------
Too
The quick launch feature alone is reason enough to upgrade. Every program
should have this!

~~~
bruceboughton
On the Mac, they do: Command+Shift+?

------
rbanffy
I must admit it looks much nicer. One of the things I observer when I moved
back to Emacs a couple years ago was how the tools, buttons, borders, panels
were distracting and one of their design goals was to make the code the more
important visual element.

------
Maro
Visually, it almost looks like a step back.

------
oliwer
Finally a black theme! I'm sold.

~~~
mariusmg
VS2010 has a black theme......

------
barista
The blog is by UX designer guy. So obviously he's focusing on the UI changes.
Hope there are more substantial changes in this release other than just a
change in color scheme and iconography.

------
georgieporgie
I like the new style. It makes me nostalgic for NeXT and AmigaOS 2.0 UI.

I just hope it crashes less and is faster than VS2010. Also, it looks like yet
another release that neglects C++ users.

~~~
rbanffy
I'd gladly exchange color for more pixels most of the time.

------
michael_miller
It's interesting that Microsoft chose to adopt monochrome icons after Mac OS X
/ iTunes adopted monochrome icons. I'd be curious if Apple's design was a
major influence on Microsoft's designers, or if the idea for monochrome icons
came primarily from independent research/user testing.

~~~
georgemcbay
This looks more like an extension of the UI style they started adopting with
the Expression tools back in 2008, which itself was more directly influenced
by Adobe tools like Photoshop Elements and Lightroom than iTunes or Mac OS.

If you really want to tie Apple into it, then the anchor would be Aperture
(which obviously influenced Adobe), not really iTunes or recent releases of
Mac OS.

~~~
sixothree
A la iTunes 9 -> 10.

------
bitwize
I came shockingly close to projectile vomiting when I read the header "The New
Developer Experience".

My experience of developing is quite similar regardless of the tools I use.
And I've been developing for years on a variety of toolkits including VS.

A slick mobile UI styled facelift on their signature overweight IDE isn't
going to radically change the developer's experience.

(Also, who else looked at Metro and ICS's love affair with abstract geometric
single-color icons and thought "OLPC"?)

~~~
Spearchucker
I've been using Metro on a Samsung Series 7 Slate as my main PC/laptop/tablet
for a couple of months now and don't quite see OLPC in there. But then, I've
not used XO. FWIW I love Metro. The little UI touches like changing the volume
or brightness make Windows 7 feel somehow... inadequate.

As for VS - yup, 2010 was slow. I actually went back to 2008 because even the
Express editions were too slow on my little Vaio P-Series.

~~~
rkwz
>The little UI touches like changing the volume or brightness make Windows 7
feel somehow... inadequate.

Can you elaborate on that?

~~~
Spearchucker
When you swipe in from the right side of the screen (in both Metro and from
the desktop) you get the search, share, start, devices and settings icons.
Touch settings, and you get WiFi, volume, brightness, notifications, power and
language icons, from which you can make changes without closing the current
window/app or having to open a new one.

Doing all of that in Windows 7 meant going to a whole herd of different places
to do that sort of stuff.

Metro is just so much easier than moving down to the system tray with a mouse,
or having to right-click the desktop, or having to go to the start menu.

~~~
rkwz
> Touch settings, and you get WiFi, volume, brightness, notifications, power
> and language icons, from which you can make changes without closing the
> current window/app or having to open a new one.

So the settings charm is like android notification tray on steroids? That's
pretty cool! I'd like to see this added to windowsphone too! :)

