Visual Studio Launch and What it Means to Me

I’ve been playing this Software Development game for almost 15 years now yet I can’t deny that I still get excited about new technology.  This is the week of the Visual Studio 2005 Launch (along with its close cousins SQL Server and BizTalk 2006).  I’ve been working with these products for more than a year now – traveling all over the world educating customers and helping them understand how these products can be adopted and leveraged in their world.  Some customers simply can’t wait for the next version of SQL Server; others believe Team System will be extremely valuable to their organization.  If there is one thing I’ve found over the last year+ is that every customer truly has distinct and specific needs.

What do all of these new products mean to me?  Well, for me these new products signify a new opportunity to innovate and grow.  They symbolize another jump start on the global economy of software engineering and that excites me.  On that note, I thought I would take this time to highlight some of the product features that I’m really pumped about.  If you are attending any launch activities around the world you will undoubtedly see most of these:

NOTE:  the following aren’t all the new features of the products, simply the features that stand out in my mind.

1. Team System:  A new collaborative platform that provides us with the opportunity of truly focusing on the quality of our software and the processes we use to construct it.  Specifically my favorite parts of Team System are:
1. Team Foundation Work Items
2. Team Foundation Team Build
3. Team Foundation The Team System Data Warehouse and Reporting Services
4. Team Foundation Process Templates (powered by my Process Template Editing software of course)
5. Team Foundation Source Control (a must have in my opinion)
6. VSTS for Software Testers: Load Testing
7. VSTS for Software Testers:  Web Testing
8. VSTS for Software Developers:  Unit Test and Code Coverage
2. SQL 2005
1. XML Data Types
2. Try Catch Error Handling
3. Common Table Expressions
4. Native Support for Web Services
5. Stored Procs as Managed Code (even though I think this can be dangerous)
3. BizTalk
1. WAY easier installation and initial configuration
2. Much better Orchestration experience
3. Better MOM Support
4. HUGE Business Activity Monitoring Improvements (this stuff makes me warm and crazy inside)
5. “WOW” style performance and scalability improvements
6. Lots more operational and management features
4. ASP.NET (I’m not a web developer, but using ASP.NET 2.0 makes me want to be one)
1. Master Pages
2. New data controls
3. Membership, role management, and login controls (it couldn’t get much easier)
4. Amazing profile support
5. Site maps
5. Smart Clients
1. Amazing improvements to VSTO
2. Click Once
3. Very cool designer support
6. Language and Framework upgrades
1. There are too many to list (My, Partial Types, and the list goes on)

For those out there who have been working with the Alphas and the Betas of these products you are probably as excited as I am about all of this.  For those of you who are just getting into this new stuff – take a deep breath – because, here it comes!

See you at the launch activities.