Using the Whidbey Beta 1 Debugger Today

Now that Whidbey beta 1 is out, people are probably sick of hearing about it. But I figured I would talk about one practical way to use Whidbey on your production code – use the new debugger. While you can't yet use a Whidbey compiler or the Whidbey .NET Runtime for your production code because that would mean shipping beta software, you can use the Whidbey debugger and editor today. This is going to require you to build outside of the IDE or have two IDEs – 2003 for building and 2005 debugging. For some, I am sure this is more difficult then it is worth. On the other hand, if you are already building from the command line (using NAnt or build.exe) then this should be really easy. To make debugging easier, make sure you open the exe that 2003 produced as a project.

I personally love the new debugger, and could never go back. I consider the new enhanced data tips and the improved remote debugging indispensable. Andy talked about some of the new features here. I hope you give it a try.