(How To Videos) Get up to speed on Visual Studio 2008

Visual Studio 2008 (and the .NET Framework 3.5) is set to release to manufacturing in a few weeks (November timeframe).  I've been working with it for about 6 months myself, and once you get pass the BETA "issues" it is a nice upgrade over Visual Studio 2005 in a variety of areas.

I specifically like these news features:

  • Multi-targeted frameworks
    • Within VS2008, the IDE gives you a choice of working with the .NET 2.0, 3.0, or 3.5 framework
    • Which means that I don't have to have Visual Studio 2005 (for backward compatibility) and Visual Studio 2008 installed to get the new features
    • The ability to switch frameworks overtime, so that I can start with .NET 2.0, for example, and as my company/customer approves .NET 3.0/3.5, I can switch my project to the new framework, and Visual Studio 2008 will automatically give me new choices (UI, Controls, Coding options).
  • LINQ (**L**anguage **IN**tegrated **Q**uery)
    • The ability to treat almost any object as data
    • One querying language for Objects, XML, SQL Data, etc.
    • and more.  You should really watch the video on this one
  • New features for the Web Developer, among them
    • Split View in the IDE, which will synchronize the HTML view and the GUI view, so that you can work in either and see the results synchronized in both panes.
    • New CSS Support.  Features that you've seen in higher end HTML editors, but now in Visual Studio, so that you don't have to switch tools during Development
  • Full ASP.NET Ajax integration
  • And much more

Click here to see the Full Video Clips: https://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/bb655906.aspx

Here are the "Quick Clips"


Part 1: Introduction


Part 2 – Split View and CSS


Part 3 - Nested Master Pages


Part 4 – LINQ to SQL Overview


Part 5 – LINQ to SQL Dynamically Generate HTML


Part 6- LINQ Data Validation


Part 7- AJAX Integration and Javascript Support

 

~Robert Shelton

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