The VSXtra community project: Driving toward a new Visual Studio Managed Package Framework

The VSXtra community project: Driving toward a new Visual Studio Managed Package Framework (VSX108)

Speaker: Istvan Novak (VSX Insider, Grepton Informatics)
Visual Studio package development with VS SDK 2008 is easier than ever before. Starting a new VSPackage is quite easy using the Visual Studio Integration Package wizard and the Managed Package Framework. However, when going into coding developers have to face with COM-related types and interfaces too often. It’s a kind of schizophrenic state to work in .NET using COM-driven approach and dealing with plumbing too much.

In my session I introduce you the current state and results of an experimental community project codenamed “VSXtra” (http://www.codeplex.com/VSXtra). This project enumerates many patterns that drive toward a new and improved Managed Package Framework using the great pillars of the current .NET Framework like metadata, generics, LINQ, C#3.0 syntax, etc. The aim of this session is to share my thoughts with you, open my ears for your feedback and widen the community around improving VSX development experience.