Visual Studio 2008 Express Editions Released

Post by **benryves** » Tue 20 Nov, 2007 3:27 pm

Visual Studio 2008 Express Editions have been released.

Their biggest change for me (in relation to 2005) is support for C#3 and VB9, both of which add some great new language features (see thread here).

King Harold · Post by **King Harold** » Tue 20 Nov, 2007 6:57 pm

Now you mention C#, XNA beta 2.0 has also been released

Post by **benryves** » Wed 21 Nov, 2007 4:08 pm

XNA 2 beta, surely?

Unfortunately, from what I read, it adds support for VS 2005 (non-EE), but doesn't work yet in VS 2008.

I'm having problems with VS 2008 on my home machine; it looks like I'm missing a particular Windows update to .NET 2.0 and so can't compile projects. It mysteriously started working on my work machine this morning (after the same issues) so I'm going to try reinstalling. :\

King Harold · Post by **King Harold** » Wed 21 Nov, 2007 5:50 pm

yes that..

why are you using 2008 then?

Post by **benryves** » Wed 21 Nov, 2007 5:52 pm

King Harold wrote:why are you using 2008 then?

It adds support for C#3, as well as the .NET 3.0 features that only worked in VS 2005 Standard (eg WPF designer).

A further plus point is that Visual C++ EE supports Win32 projects straight out of the box, without needing to install the Windows SDK (which is a fairly hefty 1.2GB download).

King Harold · Post by **King Harold** » Wed 21 Nov, 2007 6:39 pm

Ok especially that last thing sounds rather nice (the windows SDK always annoyed me by magically becoming unfindable for VC++ 2005 at random moments)
I heard some stories about VS 2008 that were rather scary though (ranging from crashes to corrupted files)
Oh well, testing won't hurt.. (hopefully)

Post by **benryves** » Fri 23 Nov, 2007 1:49 pm

King Harold wrote:I heard some stories about VS 2008 that were rather scary though (ranging from crashes to corrupted files)

Heh, I take it you never used the betas for 2005. They were horribly unstable.

Anyhow, I took the easy way out and reinstalled Windows (only took 15 minutes, hooray for the new installer) and now VS 2008 is installed and Brass 3 has been gradually updated to C#3.

I fear I won't be able to take advantage of the full .NET 3.5 functionality, sadly, without breaking Mono compatibility, so I'm still targetting .NET 2.0.

DJ_O · Post by **DJ_O** » Fri 23 Nov, 2007 2:59 pm

post removed

Post by **benryves** » Fri 23 Nov, 2007 3:11 pm

As long as you don't use it for C++, that's not so bad.

If you do use it for C++, bear in mind that it predates the standardisation of C++ - so fails to compile valid code, does compile invalid code and is generally regarded as being really rather horrible. :\

DJ_O · Post by **DJ_O** » Sat 24 Nov, 2007 12:04 am

post removed

Post by **benryves** » Mon 26 Nov, 2007 11:07 am

Heh, I tried importing an old VB6 project at work into VS2005 to see what it would make of it. Needless to say, it wasn't too impressed, raising thousands of errors trying to compile. VB6 is here to stay when it comes to supporting old projects.