S. Somasegar (Soma) and Scott Guthrie on Orcas Beta 2: What's in it?

Posted By: Charles | Jul 26th, 2007 @ 3:01 PM | 124,455 Views | 37 Comments

Visual Studio 2008 Code Name "Orcas" Beta 2 has just hit the wire and, since it's Beta 2, this means VS2008 is feature complete (oh, and it's GoLive! as well)!!!

"Orcas" represents a major evolution for Visual Studio and our suite of .NET languages. Who better to talk about what's new in "Orcas" than our friends S. Somasegar (Everybody calls him Soma), VP of the Developer Division (the group that makes all of our development technologies), and Scott Guthrie, General Manager and one of Microsoft's most prolific employees (now a senior manager, but he keeps his hands in the technologies he and team build and innovate).

Here, we talk about what's new, exactly, why you (the developer) should care about it, what's changed from Beta 1 to Beta 2, what's the general process of building "Orcas" (we will dig deeper into this with the folks who drive the new, improved development process in the Developer Division), how feature cut decisions are made.

In this conversation, Scott makes a very interesting comment about the state of .NET languages like VB9 and C# 3.0: In his mind, they represent the most dramatic change since .NET 1.0 in terms of power and productivity.

As always, it's great to chat with Soma and Scott. DevDiv is loaded with talent, from top to bottom.

Play with Beta 2!

Enjoy.
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#Jul 26th, 2007 @ 3:18 PM
Chadk
Chadk
excuse me - do you has a flavor?

Congratz on the new milestone. Im so downloading this beta!!! Big Smile

#Jul 26th, 2007 @ 3:45 PM
swiatecki
swiatecki
.net - love it
Been waiting for this all day long :] Almost too good to be true Big Smile

Congrats
#Jul 26th, 2007 @ 3:58 PM
figuerres
figuerres
???

Hmm... must check this out!

and see if the GoLive! is now or a later rev.

too bad I don't have the time to submit a pile of bug reps etc... like I did in the VS2005 time frame... Still have a VS2005 Cube from Soma and crew... Smiley  the "thanks for all the testing" thing they sent out after the final cut.

#Jul 26th, 2007 @ 4:09 PM
gsamiq
gsamiq
Samiq
Amazing work u guys have done! Watching ScottGu talking about the new features takes the chills on me on the amount of work these guys have done!

Congrats.

[... Update2: Channel9 has a great video here with an interview with Soma and ScottGu talking about what's new and what is there to expect with this new release...] Pingback from Samiq Bits
#Jul 26th, 2007 @ 4:34 PM
figuerres
figuerres
???
figuerres wrote:


Hmm... must check this out!

and see if the GoLive! is now or a later rev.

too bad I don't have the time to submit a pile of bug reps etc... like I did in the VS2005 time frame... Still have a VS2005 Cube from Soma and crew...   the "thanks for all the testing" thing they sent out after the final cut.



Sweet.... it is a "GoLive!"  that's major!!
#Jul 26th, 2007 @ 4:54 PM
moonwalkercs
moonwalkercs
Would it be possible to get a lower resolution version of this video?  With these large files, on my machine at least, the video is completely unwatchable.
#Jul 26th, 2007 @ 4:56 PM
Charles
Charles
Welcome Change
moonwalkercs wrote:
Would it be possible to get a lower resolution version of this video?  With these large files, on my machine at least, the video is completely unwatchable.


Are you playing the streaming video? It's multi-bit rate encoded for exactly this reason (I am assuming your internet connection is slow).

We will be providing more bit rate options in the future (so, you'll be able to choose High Quality or Low Quality files). But this won't be the case for a while.
#Jul 26th, 2007 @ 5:04 PM
mwirth
mwirth
i'll be definitely checking out vs2008 beta 2. one thing though i didn't like at all about this interview: c++ didn't get mentioned. it's so frustrating to me.
c# and vb do have a great story with linq, with office integration with new language features etc etc.
i know that all of these features are much harder to accomplish or not allowed with native c++ (as the comittee decides on language features). i also understand that there have been some improvements to mfc 8 and a better integration story with managed code (which in itself is a huge effort i must admit) and debugger enhancements. But, let's face it, most IDEs including VS are not making a lot of progress in terms of helping the c++ developer. I think its much harder to come up with good ideas how to make the lives of c++ devs easier.
 I still enjoy writing stuff in native c++. i've learned to live with the fact that my apps tend to look a lot more simple than anything i could create with windows forms or wpf. but then there are companies like e.g. intel that innovate in the c++ library space and in the c++ tool space (threading tools just to mention one area).
i don't see that kind of innovation from microsoft, unfortunately. why not create the majority of new c++ related tools as libraries outside the VS sku? why integrate these things (like the new marshal_as stuff) into the sku?
a graphical tool using the DSL designer of vs 2008 that generates stubs for an mpi application? make some space at codegear and maintain it. that would be an example how to share innovation with the c++ folks (it doesn't even need to be free and open source. look at intel's model. well.. they don't have an IDE to build.. i know..)

again: i know that native c++ cannot participate in the glory of wpf, wcf, wwf that easily. but make it shine through superior tools instead. marketing hasn't picked that one up, yet.

thanks, Charles for that interview! made download the bits right away.  this is not meant to be lame c++ fanatic critizism (i admit it sounds a bit like that Wink). i'm just still feeling that c++ needs a bit of a boost Wink... please don't be offended anyone. it's just my opinion on the recent developments in VS but i admit: a strong opinion.

cheers,
martin



#Jul 26th, 2007 @ 5:39 PM
staceyw
staceyw
Before C# there was darkness...

Thank you, thank you guys!  Looks to be the best yet.  I have been chomping ever few hours waiting for this one.  Been wanting to use the linq class model on a db app and use the sql ce sync designer.  Hopefully, this all works out.  I would like to see more tutorials on linq and databinding and local ce and remote sql solutions.  Have a few out, but need some more coverage.

Great!!

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