Visual Studio 2008 Overview

Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2008 delivers on the Microsoft vision of smart client applications by enabling developers to rapidly create connected applications that deliver the highest quality, rich user experiences. With Visual Studio 2008, organizations will find it easier than ever before to capture and analyze information to help them make effective business decisions. Visual Studio 2008 enables organizations of every size to rapidly create more secure, manageable, and reliable applications that take advantage of Windows Vista™ and the 2007 Office system.

Visual Studio 2008 delivers key advances for developers in three primary pillars:

• Rapid application development
• Effective team collaboration
• Break through user experiences

Visual Studio 2008 provides advanced development tools, debugging features, database functionality, and innovative features for quickly creating tomorrow's cutting-edge applications across a variety of platforms.

Visual Studio 2008 includes enhancements such as visual designers for faster development with the .NET Framework 3.5, substantial improvements to Web development tools and language enhancements that speed development with all types of data. Visual Studio 2008 provides developers with all the tools and framework support required to create compelling, expressive, AJAX-enabled Web applications.

Developers will be able to take advantage of these rich client-side and server-side, frameworks to easily build client-centric Web applications that integrate with any back-end data provider, run within any modern browser, and have complete access to ASP.NET application services and the Microsoft platform.

Rapid Application Development
To help developers rapidly create modern software, Visual Studio 2008 delivers improved language and data features, such as Language Integrated Query (LINQ), that make it easier for individual programmers to build solutions that analyze and act on information.

Visual Studio 2008 also provides developers with the ability to target multiple versions of the .NET Framework from within the same development environment. Developers will be able to build applications that target the .NET Framework 2.0, 3.0 or 3.5, meaning that they can support a wide variety of projects in the same environment.

Break Through User Experience
Visual Studio 2008 offers developers new tools that speed creation of connected applications on the latest platforms including the Web, Windows Vista, Office 2007, SQL Server 2008, and Windows Server 2008. For the Web, ASP.NET AJAX and other new technologies will enable developers to quickly create a new generation of more efficient, interactive, and personalized Web experiences.

Effective Team Collaboration
Visual Studio 2008 delivers expanded and improved offerings that help improve collaboration in development teams, including tools that help integrate database professionals and graphic designers into the development process.

Use the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5
The .NET Framework enables the rapid construction of connected applications that provide outstanding end-user experiences by providing the building blocks (pre-fabricated software) for solving common programming tasks. Connected applications built on the .NET Framework model business processes effectively and facilitate the integration of systems in heterogeneous environments.

Together Visual Studio and the .NET Framework reduce the need for common plumbing code, reducing development time and enabling developers to concentrate on solving business problems.

The .NET Framework 3.5 builds incrementally on the .NET Framework 3.0. Enhancements have been made to feature areas including the base class library, Windows Workflow Foundation, Windows Communication Foundation, Windows Presentation Foundation, and Windows CardSpace.