Visual Studio 2013 Launch Highlights

There was so much to take in at Wednesday’s launch event, it’s hard to know where to start. All of the keynote sessions are available on-demand (visit http://events.visualstudio.com) and there are a number of events over the coming weeks which will let you go deeper into the new features available. (Keep an eye on the Canadian Developer Events Hub for more details in the very near future.)

In particular, if you’re in a team that uses Application Lifecycle Management methodologies, don’t miss the upcoming webinar, What’s New for ALM in Visual Studio 2013 where Adam Gallant will be talking through the changes that have the biggest impact for ALM teams and how development teams can take advantage of these.

In the meantime, we’ve been asking around, looking to get people’s top picks from the launch announcements. The links will take you through to bite-sized clips of the different features, typically between 5 and 10 minutes long, so you can quickly see what’s new.

Tommy Lewis

• Visual Studio Online – The ability to make it easy for me to collaborate with small and large groups is significant. I don’t want to have to spend a lot of time getting set up.
• Monaco – Being able to test code online in any browser is great. Especially for folks who do not have Windows. It also allows me to test things without having to create an entire setup. (Here’s a closer look at the environment.)
• Web Essentials – The web moves fast. Having Web Essentials provide cutting edge support for web standards allows me to take advantage of new features/functions much faster. (Plus, check out the overview of Visual Studio 2013 for Web Developers)

Jeff Zado

• Applications Insight – this is going to help Dev teams really get to grips with how their software runs in production. (And the preview has now been announced.)
• Release Management – a great way for Dev and Operations to come closer together, and to smooth out the process of releasing software.
• The tighter integration between Windows Azure and Visual Studio 2013, making the overall experience much more seamless.

Brad Duholke

• Collaboration is key.
• Everything is not moving to the cloud, but it is there for those who want to take advantage of its flexibility.
• Speed -to-market and analytics are the have to haves.

Marco Di Virgilio

• The Release Management suite – taking away a big headache for business customers.
• The Xamarin, cross-platform multi-device partnership
• And the usage analytics/applications insights that support this.

Pamela Nakano

• MSDN benefits – a lot of extra value got added. For example, MSDN subscribers receive 40% off on the Smart Office4TFS bundle until the end of the year.
• The ‘Team Leader’ view in Team Foundation Server

Adam Gallant

• Visual Studio Online and Azure Integration with an excellent dashboard.

  

• The ease and simplicity of Cloud Load Testing: (I actually set this up just now to capture this screenshot! It’s THAT EASY!!!!)

  

• And the partner solutions, particularly SmartOffice4TFS and Xamarin!

Nilesh Khatri

• Agile Portfolio Management – providing enterprise agility with task planning across multiple projects.
• Azure integration, directly from the Visual Studio IDE.
• Application Insights – providing a data loop from production back to development.

Eran Barlev

• Power consumption testing – a great advantage for device app developers
• Live Azure integration and debugging
• Visual Studio Online, especially with the first 5 users free, will be an easy way to get going.

Seema Galish

• Release Management (easily model and automate)
• Application Insights (monitor and learn)
• Visual Studio Online – leverage the elastic power of the cloud which is great for: small teams, distributed teams and wider team collaboration

Now that you’ve read what these folks thought, we’d love to hear what you think – what’s going to make the biggest difference to you and your development team? Join the conversation in the Canadian Developer Connection group on LinkedIn.