Paul Krill
Editor at Large

Update: Microsoft delivers beta of Visual Studio 2010

news
May 18, 20092 mins

Professional, Suite, and Team Foundation Server components of developer tools package upgrade will be available to MSDN subscribers on Monday and to the general public on May 20

Microsoft is set to deliver Beta 1 of Visual Studio 2010, the planned upgrade to the company’s development tools platform, on Monday, according to a Microsoft blogger in Australia.

The Professional, Suite, and Team Foundation Server components of Visual Studio 2010 will be available to MSDN subscribers on Monday and to the general public on May 20 via Microsoft downloads, said Jihad Dannawi, a developer tools solution specialist for Microsoft Australia, in a blog.

[ Related: “Microsoft shows off new Visual Studio UI.” ]

Among the features that have been planned for Visual Studio 2010 are a new editor based on Windows Presentation Foundation and a code-focused enhancement called “generate from usage,” in which code recognizes what a developer is trying to do and then writes the code.

Capabilities for Windows 7 have been planned as well. Full support for the Silverlight 2 rich Internet presentation technology also has been expected, along with renovation of the C++ IDE to support parallel computing, cloud and Web services.

Meanwhile, a triangle outline mode originally planned has been dropped from the beta, said Jason Zander, general manager for Visual Studio in Microsoft’s developer division, in a blog. The company also is working on performance for Visual Studio 2010, he said.

“For Beta 1 we are making progress on performance but it is not yet where I want it to be,” Zander said.

Microsoft also is offering a beta release of .Net Framework 4, said S. “Soma” Somasegar, vice president of the Microsoft Developer Division, in his blog on Monday. He noted work continues on the development tools technologies.

“We have more work to do in terms of finishing up the feature work for some of the scenarios and getting to the right levels of quality and performance, but we have made enough progress that we wanted to start getting your feedback,” he said.

Microsoft also has been touting collaboration enhancements planned for the Team System version of Visual Studio 2010.

Paul Krill

Paul Krill is editor at large at InfoWorld. Paul has been covering computer technology as a news and feature reporter for more than 35 years, including 30 years at InfoWorld. He has specialized in coverage of software development tools and technologies since the 1990s, and he continues to lead InfoWorld’s news coverage of software development platforms including Java and .NET and programming languages including JavaScript, TypeScript, PHP, Python, Ruby, Rust, and Go. Long trusted as a reporter who prioritizes accuracy, integrity, and the best interests of readers, Paul is sought out by technology companies and industry organizations who want to reach InfoWorld’s audience of software developers and other information technology professionals. Paul has won a “Best Technology News Coverage” award from IDG.

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