Visual Studio 'Orcas' Beta 1 Released!

If you've been living under a rock (or just distracted by this Silverlight thingy), you might have missed that we've released Beta 1 of Visual Studio 'Orcas'.

This release include a number of changes to Code Analysis when compared to Visual Studio 2005, including Code Metrics, generated code improvements, new rules, among other things. Beta 1 (for our team) is also what is called feature complete. That is, this pre-release includes all of the features that we set out to add to Visual Studio during the Orcas product cycle. So although you will see some bug fixes and minor changes in Beta 2, most of the major features have been implemented. Because of this, it is also absolutely critical that we receive feedback for Beta 1 as early as possible. This will allow us (and other teams within Visual Studio) time to react to this feedback before Beta 2.

Over the coming weeks I will start delving into some of these new features within individual blog posts. Until then might I suggest you download Team Suite and have a play around?