As announced today by Soma, we’ve just released the first CTP (Community Technology Preview) of the next version of Visual Studio. This is doubly-exciting as this is the first public release of a version of Visual Studio powered by “Roslyn” by default. At BUILD we released the “Roslyn” End User Preview which extends Visual Studio 2013 by replacing some components with their “Roslyn” equivalents but this version of Visual Studio is built from the ground up on “Roslyn” with “Roslyn”.
The Visual Studio “14” CTP includes new and improved language and IDE features for Visual Basic such as multiline strings and a full-fledged refactoring experience:
And Metadata-as-Source:
(Invoke the Go to Definition command on a symbol not defined in your source project)
These are just some of the small but powerful enhancements we’re building for VB developers and we’re far from done. But that’s no reason for you to wait. Since we’ve literally rebuilt the very foundations of VB it couldn’t be more critical for us to get your feedback early and often on what you like, don’t like, love, and what you want to see more of.
Stay tuned for more posts from the Managed Languages team highlighting new and improved language features and experiences. In the meantime…
- Download the Visual Studio “14” CTP
- Learn more about what’s in the Visual Studio “14” CTP
- Submit bugs through Connect, suggestions on UserVoice and quick thoughts via Send-a-Smile in the Visual Studio IDE.
And one more thing: Visual Studio side-by-side support is not available on this early build. DO NOT install this CTP (or feed it after midnight) on a machine with any other version of Visual Studio installed.
Regards,
Anthony D. Green, Program Manager, Visual Basic and C# Languages Team
Where is classical Visual Basic? Bring it back…
Please, bring back Vb6 64bits
7300+ votes!!!
visualstudio.uservoice.com/…/3440221-bring-back-classic-visual-basic-an-improved-versi
Multiline strings… sweet!
how about multiple line comment?
Can you confirm whether VB will be getting the ?. operator that C# is getting? Been doing a lot of Groovy coding lately, and I'm loving the feature in there. Be a great shame to see C# get it and not VB, especially after all the language parity talk!!
At just the same time as this announcement, Microsoft's Paul Yuknewicz has declined the call for an updated VB6 programming language on the Microsoft UserVoice site:
visualstudio.uservoice.com/…/3440221-bring-back-classic-visual-basic-an-improved-versi
With some laughable 'technical' reasons why VB6 can't be updated Paul Yuknewicz now has the unenviable distinction of having twice cancelled VB6 – in 2002 with the decision to go for VB.Net and again in 2014 with the decision not to add to VB6 the same features already added to VBA.
Paul Yuknewicz has also stated that it is not 'feasible' to open source VB6.
Even then Paul Yuknewicz has to admit that VB6 will continue to have Microsoft support until 'at least' 2024.
Microsoft has sent a clear message to developers throughout the world "Do not use Microsoft developer tools. You simply cannot trust Microsoft to protect your investment."
Good job! VBteam. I hope to see many more cool features in VB!. that's why choose this beautiful language and .NET!
@Kevin O'Donovan,
Absolutely! We designed it for both languages simultaneously. When we talked to VB MVPs they were pretty emphatic that this was one of the most important features we could add.
Regards,
-ADG
@hooi1983,
We don't have plans at the moment to add multi-line comments. We discussed them – someone proposed this syntax (* comment *) but we don't see a lot of usage of them in C# and there are other features which exist or we're considering that cover the most common uses:
) Visual Studio's comment selection feature (Ctrl+K, Ctrl+C)
2) "Roslyn" VB now allows comments after implicit line continuation:
From x In list ' This is the From clause
Where x IsNot Nothing ' This is the Where clause
Select x, ' X
Y = x.ToString() ' and another line.
3) We've talked about documenting literals passed to method calls with the named argument syntax but allowing you to use it for even positional arguments (not forcing the rest to be named). This is better because the tooling experience with rename would work:
Console.ReadKey(intercept:=True)
Lastly, we've found that one of the greatest strengths of VB's editing experience is its line-oriented nature; typically when you make mistake or you start typing rarely does it impact subsequent lines or methods. We've cautiously relaxed it in places but there is always a negative impact to the typing experience that goes with that. If we did a general multiline comment feature for VB it would mean that when you type (* the parser would eat up the rest of the file thinking it's a comment until the end of the file until you typed *) somewhere else and we don't care for that experience much. It's already something that happens with XML literals and we were pretty worried it would happen with multi-line string literals but found a workaround. We probably solve the multi-line/inline comment problem in VB in a similar way but again we don't have a lot of use cases and it still causes complexity elsewhere in ways I won't go into right now.
But if you've got a bunch of examples where they'd be really useful I'd be happy to look at them and reconsider.
Regards,
-ADG
Looks great, good work. Looking forward to Universal projects (or equivalent) for VB so I can port some of my existing W8 apps to WP8.1.
What's up with all the people wanting VB6 back, that language/IDE was absolutely horrible (Visual Foxpro was actually better, which is saying something). VB.Net was the best thing to ever happen to VB!
Please DO NO ressurrect VB 6. That belongs to the past.
People : it is dead. Get over it!
I do not want to go through the pain that was to program using VB6 when compared even to VS 2003, not to mention VS 2013.
We have made major investments in WPF/Silverlight Tech, then along came a sinoffski and the company and the painfully bad Metro design language and the terrible UI changes to VS , even the Logo since when does a mobius have square corners ?, its like a warning saying "THIS SUCK STAY AWAY" and we have. It seemed to me that this could'nt last long given how bad these changes where and with the departure of sinoffski and ballmer and the massive flop of the whole Metro/Modern/Store crap there would be some return to delivering what Microsofts customers actually want. what are we supposed to you VS "14" for?
ASP.Vnext not interested!
WP8 ,not interested!
Metro/Modern, not interested!
Sooner or later we are going to have to look for alternatives, hope is fading fast.
Mobile first, cloud First, LOL, how about paying customer first!
as someone who spent many years with VB6/VBA I'm very suspicious of all the sudden request for an update.
seems like it might be synthetic noise to allow MS something they can actually respond to.
if its sincere, as a WPF Dev I feel your pain.
One more point , I understand universal apps will not even work on Win7!
Why do you expect us to develop for failed platforms that don't work on successful ones!!
calling all shills please post something MS can respond to, bring back VB6 if you must,
or honestley the new visual studio is great for work and play, I wanna see you be brave cause i'm just to close to love you, I cant cry no more I can lie no more, lmfao!!:}
It's our way or the highway Microsoft tells VB6 Developers
======================================
Microsoft have announced they will not add the same changes to the VB6 that they have already added to VBA. Microsoft's Paul Yuknewicz claimed those changes are "not possible" while "maintaining the essence" of VB6.
In refusing to support VB6 developers, Yuknewicz stated "VB6 was and still is without a doubt awesome. VB6 made developers incredibly productive building a breadth of applications and as a result we have a wealth of applications and passionate developers to this day in 2014. "
Yuknewicz naively assumes VB6 developers will "incrementally move forward to .NET" despite not having done so for the last 12 years.
Yuknewicz also claimed it would not be 'feasible' to open source VB6.
Yuknewicz does admit VB6 will be supported 'at least' through 2024.
visualstudio.uservoice.com/…/3440221-bring-back-classic-visual-basic-an-improved-versi
Looks good, will definitely be running this up to test it out.
Cross platform for VB would be something nice to have like there is for c# now so its a little easier for building WP8/8.1 and Win8/8.1 apps, its already pretty good with being able to reuse a fair chunk of code, but anything that makes it easier is always a good thing.
These multilined Strings is a godsend. I'm looking forwared to do some Universal Apps.
Satya Nadella still hasn't replied to the open letter about updating or open sourcing VB6.
Here is an abbreviated version of the letter….
Dear Mr. Nadella,
I have emailed you, sent you a Facebook message and posted on Facebook. As you have not replied I assume you haven't seen any of these.
I have asked you for an explanation of Mr. Paul Yuknewicz's refusal to update the VB6 programming language with the same modifications Microsoft have already done to VB6's sister language VBA.
Mr. Yuknewicz raises several straw man arguments ("Current needs ranging from distributed applications and services, to web applications and services, to devices, to new architectures and languages, required fundamental changes to the whole stack") in an attempt to explain why this is "not possible". The reality is that it is very possible, if Mr. Yuknewicz does not understand we can explain the details to him. Again, these changes are very possible – you have already done them in VBA 7.
Whilst most VB6 developers would prefer that Microsoft did these modifications and that VB6 remained a Microsoft product, if you are not willing to do this then Microsoft has a duty to safeguard the investment of VB6 developers by open sourcing VB6.
Microsoft could, of course, supply the C++ source code of VB6 to the community and let us do the modifications, but Mr. Yuknewicz again refuses, stating that is "not feasible" to open source VB6. Presumably the reason it is "not feasible" is a business decision rather than a technical one. If your concern is that the language is still current in VBA presumably you could license the VBA element to the community – certainly whatever objections you may have cannot be insurmountable.
Even Mr. Yuknewicz admits Microsoft will have to continue supporting VB6 until 'at least' 2024. In reality I'm sure we all know it is likely to be much longer.
So, Mr. Nadella, could you please explain why is it not possible for Microsoft to add the same modifications to VB6 you have already added to VBA7.1 ?
And why is it not feasible for you to open source VB6 ?
The vote for an updated VB6 on the Microsoft UserVoice site had reached the fifth highest position (out of over 8,500) and looked to be well on the way to the top position. Rather than seeing this as an indication of the popularity of VB6, it looks as though Mr. Yuknewicz has declined our call merely because of the perceived embarrassment to Microsoft of a language he cancelled back in 2002 reaching the top of a 'popularity' poll.
And why was Mr. Yuknewicz the person to make the decision ? He apparently is the Group Program Manager, Microsoft Visual Studio Cloud Tools. What relevance does that have to VB6 ? Other than being instrumental in the original decision in 2002 to abandon VB6, what involvement with VB6 does he have now ?
Mr. Nadella, please have the courtesy to reply.
Best regards,
S Ten.
@ Sten2005
Seriously, is there anyone else out there still doing development with a language that has not been updated in 14 years.
Yes, language has not been updated in 14 years. But still lets develop many kind of applications that will works in any version of Microsoft Windows (from 98 till 8.1). VB6 has only one big negative thing at the moment – it is only 32 bit 🙁 Why can't MS make us happy with 64-bit VB6??? 🙂
(sorry for my poor English).