VS2005 Favorites: XML/XSD Heaven

Visual Studio 2005 has some really awesome new features. My favorite so far is the new XML/XSD designer. Working with XML is a lot more intuitive now, and they've made it dirt simple to create a schema from a given XML file.

If you want to create a schema from scratch, you're in good company. The new schema designer looks and feels much more like creating a table in Access 2003, which is exactly how it should be. Complex schemas are easy to read and understand, and the new visualizers make it easy to constrain the heck out of your data. The learning curve is very straightforward, you don't even need to know a whole lot about schema design to create one. The interface is very discoverable, which is a huge plus IMHO.

VS2005 also goes the extra mile and creates a Typed DataSet for you automatically. The DataSets are designed in such a way that you can extend them on your own with Partial Classes. You don't mess with the generated code, you create your own class file that just extends the existing class. It's quite slick. It looks like Microsoft wants to do the same thing with WinForms designing (move the designer generated code to separate files that fon't get messed with) and I think it's a really great way to go.

That's it for now. More on VS2005 tomorrow.