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Planning for Orcas

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I've been spending a lot of my time recently planning for the next version of Visual Studio, codenamed Orcas.  Orcas will be the first version of Visual Studio released after Windows Vista, Office 12, and WinFX, so the primary theme of the release will be enabling developers to easily take advantage of the features of these new platform technologies.  The part of Orcas planning I own deals with how developers will be able to take advantage of new Windows Vista shell and UI technology from native C++.  I don't have a lot of specifics to share yet, but you can bet I'll post them here as soon as I do.

Most of the team is just finishing up a quality milestone, which we call MQ, that you may have read about on Soma's blog.  MQ was an effort by the majority of developer division to address the "bug debt" that tends to accrue in software over time.  The MQ process took about three or so months, which is a substantial investment in time for bug fixing and process improvements without any real feature work going on.  It's definitely worth the investment, though.  Not only will you see some of the results in the form of a VS 2005 service pack, but MQ also enables us to start Orcas with a clean code base.

Now that MQ is winding down, full-tilt work on Orcas will begin shortly.  However, if you have feedback for me on what Vista features you plan to take advantage of in your own VC++ applications, it's not too late to give me that feedback.  I assure you that your voice will be heard in the planning process.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    March 06, 2006
    What I would like to see in Orcas is a C++/CLI binding for Indigo / MCF.  I want to expose ANSI C++ apps to other programs, and since CORBA is losing out to Web Services, I would like to write those services in VC++ and call the native code from them, rather than having to wrap everything in C#.

  • Anonymous
    March 06, 2006
    Thanks, Wil.  I have forwarded your comment on to Tarek Madkour, who is leading the VC++ team's WinFX Orcas planning efforts.  I think the scenario you describe of wanting to build your SOA bits in C++ rather than mix in C# is pretty typical for those that already have invested in C++ for business logic.

    BTW, you probably know this, but you much of what you're asking for today in C++/CLI using asp.net web services.  You don't get the Indigo goodness, but you do call all that asp.net web services brings to the table.

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2006
    Any chance for getting the Class Wizard back? ;o)

  • Anonymous
    April 13, 2006
    Sven,

    The honest answer is probably not for Orcas.  However, it remains on the list of stuff we'd really like to do.

        -steve

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