Build 2013: Visual Studio 2013 Preview Available Now

On Wednesday Steve Ballmer kicked off the Build 2013 developer conference in San Francisco, and there’s been quite some buzz about the announcements we have made. And you’ll agree that with the Windows 8.1 Preview, a whole bunch of really cool features have been added to the OS!

But what is it that really lights up a device, that makes a person want to buy, use and continue to use the device? It’s all about the apps that run on top of the operating system, whether it’s a game, newsreader or line-of-business app.

And it’s developers that have the awesome role and responsibility of driving forward all kinds of innovation, that have the potential to build creative and compelling solutions that delight and transform the world.

Together with the Windows 8.1 Preview, Microsoft released a preview version of Visual Studio 2013, which can be downloaded at https://preview.windows.com. Furthermore Somasegar, Vice president of developer division at Microsoft, has posted a blog explaining in more detail what to expect from the new Visual Studio:

• • .NET 4.5.1 Preview with go live support, improving on diagnostics and debugging support:
    • x64 support for Edit and Continue
    • More enhanced experience for async operation debugging
    • Same capability support for JS & C++
  • C++ 11 standard support which is big thing as you know C++ is a first citizen language in building Windows 8 apps.
  • Serious performance improvements to XAML developer experience (yes!) along with UI responsive toolset support and UI testing!
  • A better JS debugging Experience, overall making VS one of the best JS debugging tools out there
  • The really cool energy consumption tool, allowing you to measure the energy consumption of the app you are developing

And this is just the tip of the Iceberg. You can find the full article here and check out the many interesting Build 2013 sessions.

Try it out and let us know what you think about it.