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Follow UsEach new version of Visual Studio has made the life of developers easier with umpteen improvements and additional features being introduced. This new version departs from the numbered version naming (typically this should be Visual Studio 7).
However the .Net nomenclature has been added to the name to signify the radical shift that this version offers from the traditional methods of programming. The .Net paradigm is visible in all the places in this version. For a detailed explanation about what .Net programming is, see the previous issues of PCQuest.
The Enterprise Edition Beta comes on 4 CDs, not counting the MSDN documentation, so be prepared to keep a lot of disk space when installing it. Installation is fairly simple but time consuming. The first part of installation looks for the .Net components on your system. In fact, if you are using a non-updated version of NT4 or 2000, the installation will first install the required service packs. We recommend using Windows XP for VS.Net if you don’t want to go through these hassles. It then proceeds to install the .Net framework (beta 2 on the CD). After this is done, where you’ll need to shuffle between a couple of the CDs, the main VS install procedure begins. If you choose the custom installation option, you can select what components you wish to install.
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The Enterprise edition contains Visual C++, Visual Basic.Net and Visual C#. (PCQuest has carried a six month tutorial on C# from July 2001 onwards). The installation also allows you to select where you wish to install these programs as well as select other components like SourceSafe, a bit of the SDK documentation, Microsoft Vision 2000 (a highly recommended application) and other add-ons like Crystal Reports etc. Sit back and relax for some time while the installation starts. You’ll need to shuffle CDs once again during the process.
When the product is installed, start up your favorite programming platform–VC, VB or VC#. It really doesn’t matter which as, unlike in the previous versions, all these platforms now share a common RAD (Rapid Application Development) user interface. This itself has undergone a significant overhaul and you can find a lot of intuitive and useful changes across
the board.
Creating a project and adding files to it is like before though the languages themselves have got some changes. (This is however beyond the scope of this preview).
The debugger has been enhanced and you can view and debug console applications within this window too. Every language also has a command-line compiler that can be used for compiling any code written in that language.
The development UI allows RAD using simple drag-drop painting of components. Collapsible code segments let you quickly assign event handlers, and jump from one section to another. Overall, using this UI seems to be faster than the one in older versions.
One word of caution though. The entire application takes ages to load up. On a single system, VS 6 took less than half the time to start up then VS.Net. If you are a full-time developer working on this platform, don’t exit and restart the application repeatedly. Also be prepared for investing in larger drives if you need to install this it. A minimum of one GB can be easily used up, and more if other options are also chosen.
Although using the UI is more intuitive and faster, the speed of the UI itself is sluggish. Faster processors, more RAM and VRAM, and the final version should make things
better.
As this goes to press, we’ve learnt that the final release is right around the corner and could be out by the time you read this preview.
Vinod Unny