
Visual Studio 2017 What's New Poster - timsneath
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/visualstudio/2017/03/13/visual-studio-2017-poster/
======
neogodless
The "web infographic" version is much more readable... in a web broswer:
[https://vs2017poster.azurewebsites.net/](https://vs2017poster.azurewebsites.net/)

~~~
johnhattan
Yeah, when they say "poster", they're not kidding. I imagine the one-pager is
gonna be impossibly hard to read unless you have a printer that can handle
24"x36" or larger.

~~~
pjmlp
Back when they had the first SQL Server version after the Sybase deal, I think
it was version 6.5, we got a full wall poster containing a description of all
metadata tables sent to us, along the usual pile of MSDN CDs.

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macandcheese
Glad to see their graphic design internship program is alive and well...

~~~
anotheryou
serving pdfs to the web like no other

link to the gigantic image (displayed quite tiny on the site and after a slow
load just linking to the pdf):
[https://msdnshared.blob.core.windows.net/media/2017/03/Visua...](https://msdnshared.blob.core.windows.net/media/2017/03/VisualStudio2017_ProductLaunchPoster-1.png)

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eldavido
I use Visual Studio every day these days.

Honestly, I wish it would do less, but a lot better. Rather than adding new
features, I would love to see the following addressed:

\- 64-bit by default. I am developing for Windows 10, make the entire C#
toolchain emit 64-bit binaries. Make devenv.exe 64-bit, make the default
build/compile 64-bit

\- Make the XAML editor work without bombing out in not-that-unreasonable
scenarios.

\- Make it faster. Everywhere. Make project startup faster, make static
analysis faster, make the compiler faster.

I don't use probably 90% of what it does. You're never going to convince me VS
is a better tool for deployments, managing databases, or the approximately 50
other things it tries to do, better than purpose-built, scriptable tools. Just
make a fast, purpose-built code editor with good static analysis capabilities,
and get out of my way. FWIW, I'm really liking Visual Studio Code these days,
it's more in line with what I want.

~~~
KirinDave
On the "faster" claim, you may miss it with all the visual noise but on the
blog posts they boast noticeable speedups, although I didn't see any
quantification.

~~~
caesarshift
Item #9 from an earlier release announcement says "starting up, loading
projects and building":
[https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/uktechnet/2016/11/29/vis...](https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/uktechnet/2016/11/29/visual-
studio-2017-rc-new-and-improved-features/)

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dazbradbury
Visual Studio release system requirements with every version (I believe):

[https://www.visualstudio.com/en-
us/productinfo/vs2017-system...](https://www.visualstudio.com/en-
us/productinfo/vs2017-system-requirements-vs)

But it would be good to know what their actual developers use - as I see
people complaining about Visual Studio lag all the time. Perhaps if they
simply stated: SSD recommended, or our developers use XYZ in their builds - it
would help individuals and organisations know what hardware is key to perfect
performance.

I can't imagine devs at MS put up with lag when developing their software - so
assume it's well known what hardware matches well with VS.

~~~
pjmlp
The interesting part is that this lame 2012 laptop, dual core with 8 GB and
HDD, can execute VS 2015 without any major issue, but I get the fan full speed
when using Android Studio instead.

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voltagex_
They've also gotten rid of the ISO installer which is making enterprise
deployment a real pain.

~~~
alkonaut
How does such a deployment scenario work? Are there devs out there who would
agree to _not_ set up their IDE themselves? The VS installer has one million
optional components, and every dev needs a different set...

~~~
pjmlp
Yes, typical enterprise IT.

You get a development workstation configured by IT with the standard tooling
allowed inside the company.

Regarding Visual Studio, it usually means a full install of professional
version, or with luck the enterprise version for those with architect role.

Getting any software for development not configured out of the box by IT,
usually means opening a ticket requesting the installation, alongside the
reason why it is required and occasionally the corresponding cost center as
well.

~~~
alkonaut
> Yes, typical enterprise IT.

I thought that didn't apply to devs - even in a 10k people org. Doesn't this
just create a massive overhead?

Aren't people going to require modifying this setup regularly? (oh now I need
the .NET 4.6.2. targeting pack, tomorrow it's the MsBuild 12.0 tools and next
week it'll be the SDK for Win10 developers update (They release one SDK update
per Win update!).

> Getting any software for development not configured out of the box by IT,
> usually means opening a ticket requesting the installation, alongside the
> reason why it is required and occasionally the corresponding cost center as
> well.

It feels like a massive administrative overhead if you have to raise IT
support tickets in order to modify a VS installation. This all feels like a
maintenance nightmare. I can't imagine the alternative being worse (1000 devs
maintaining 1000 different types of computers themselves).

I thought I was in a large "enterprise-y" situation - but apparently I'm not.
I'm at least trusted to face the VS installer on my own.

~~~
pjmlp
> Aren't people going to require modifying this setup regularly? (oh now I
> need the .NET 4.6.2. targeting pack, tomorrow it's the MsBuild 12.0 tools
> and next week it'll be the SDK for Win10 developers update (They release one
> SDK update per Win update!).

No, because you are only allowed to do that if project requirements do
actually need those updates.

You never do that alone, it is done for all devs working on that specific
project.

> I thought I was in a large "enterprise-y" situation - but apparently I'm
> not. I'm at least trusted to face the VS installer on my own.

Well, I work on consulting for large enterprises Fortune 500, DAX 30, and
similar corporations.

The level of freedom we get on the computers assigned to us, depends pretty
much on the customer, their security processes, vendor management processes,
and how their internal IT is set up.

Not all customers have such tight control.

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Sorry_Rum_Ham
Sweet Jesus that thing is borderline impossible to read.

~~~
timsneath
Try the web infographic version here:
[https://aka.ms/vs2017infographic](https://aka.ms/vs2017infographic)

------
Tomis02
Let me guess, C++ performance (especially when it comes to loading really
large projects) decreased again. And it's probably even more sluggish than
before. That's been a trend since Visual Studio 6.

~~~
eco
[https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/visualstudio/2016/10/11/sho...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/visualstudio/2016/10/11/shorter-
solution-load-time-in-visual-studio-15/)

Also:
[https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/visualstudio/2016/10/13/fas...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/visualstudio/2016/10/13/faster-
c-solution-load-and-build-performance-with-visual-studio-15/)

~~~
Tomis02
Thanks for the links, I'll give it a try. Not holding my breath though.

~~~
philliphaydon
I'm recommending we don't move to VS2017 at work. It's much slower to open and
it's laggy. 2015 compiles about 5 seconds slower but there's no lag in the IDE
for me. Hopefully the issues get resolved in update 1.

It doesn't mess with project files tho which is great.

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mcintyre1994
Aww, I was wondering why they chose an unambitious C# pattern matching example
and the really cool stuff didn't make this release. Looks like a solid set of
improvements in the IDE and C# though, nice!

~~~
jmartinpetersen
The use of pattern matching on types in an object oriented languages scares
me. It's like a too easily wielded extremely powerful dependency magnet.

~~~
KirinDave
> It's like a too easily wielded extremely powerful dependency magnet.

The equivalent if statement is not?

~~~
jmartinpetersen
Most people can be brought to realise that they are going somewhere dark when
they're using typeof in an if statement. This is a whole language construct
built and communicated around this (dark) idea.

I understand that general pattern matching is A Really Nice Thing and that
Mads misses it from SML (or something like it), I just can't see the value for
all the dangers from an OO perspective.

~~~
KirinDave
> Most people can be brought to realise that they are going somewhere dark
> when they're using typeof in an if statement. This is a whole language
> construct built and communicated around this (dark) idea.

I'm really confused by your statement on multiple levels.

For one, Scala has been doing this for some time and it's one of the less
controversial and mostly well-loved things it does. For two, Clojure's been
doing it on the JVM and that's hardly Clojure's problem. F#'s been doing it in
the .NET interface layer as well.

Maybe get specific with your problem rather than saying that there are
invisible dragons that only your legendary intelligence can perceive.

Because pattern matching and deconstructive binding saves a lot of code and
often has a powerful "say what I mean" factor for developers. Comparing it to
a typeof conditional chain (which is considerably more awkward to maintain
because of the general awkwardness of conditional cascades) seems to me like a
very weak argument.

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LyalinDotCom
Also be sure to check out all the on-demand videos we have up now (including
two training courses we did at RTM launch event), its all up on our developer
network for free: [https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Visual-Studio/Visual-
Studio...](https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Visual-Studio/Visual-
Studio-2017-Launch)

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quaffapint
Seems to have some troubles opening large old solutions. I tried it and it
just hangs and never responds with an error or anything. This is on an old
aspnet solution with around 40 projects. Googling seems similar issues, but I
haven't found a fix yet. I guess that's why you wait for revisions.

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johnchristopher
I made the switch from vim to visual studio code for php coding. Is it worth
switching to vs2017 ?

~~~
timsneath
There's an extension to Visual Studio that adds rich PHP support, here:
[https://www.devsense.com/](https://www.devsense.com/). It's pretty good.

You might watch this video to get a sense of what the full Visual Studio IDE
offers for a PHP developer:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up4bEMPktzU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up4bEMPktzU)

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isaac_is_goat
This is almost as bad as the Blender one I saw on reddit a few days ago.

~~~
Flow
I bet this is the one you refer to:

[http://giudansky.com/images/articoli/2016/11/blender-
infogra...](http://giudansky.com/images/articoli/2016/11/blender-
infographic-1280-SM.png)

At a glance it looks quite bad, but if you actually learn Blender it's
probably useful.

