Powerful Visual Studio Add-In

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Visual Studio doesn't seem to get much credit for the power of its extensibility model.  When most people think about a IDE with powerful plug-ins they think of Eclipse, which granted, has some incredible plug-ins.  However, Visual Studio's add-in model is no slouch and one prime example of its capabilities is in JetBrains Resharper. 

 

JetBrains Resharper is the best refactoring add-in to VS I have seen.  It has so many features that I won't even try to describe all of them here, just go the their website and read about it. 

 

I will highlight one feature which the first time I used it made me say "wow I wish I had thought of that".  When you click on a closing bracket or parenthesis and the opening one is not visible Resharper will create a popup box showing you the line where the opening bracket or parenthesis is. 

 

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This is just one of the many features of Resharper that I can't code without now.  The only downside is that Resharper isn't free.  It costs about $150 for a personal license but you can have a 30 day free trial.  If you code often in Visual Studio try this out and see if it is worth it.  I highly recommend it.