Visual Basic Whidbey

Posted January 15, 2004

Chat Date: November 11, 2003

Please note: Portions of this transcript have been edited for clarity

Introduction

Moderator: Ed_H (Microsoft)
Welcome to today’s chat. We have a very special chat today, where we will discuss the next version of Visual Basic, code named "Whidbey". We will discuss all that we can, but we cannot guarantee features or talk about release dates, unfortunately.

 

Moderator: Ed_H (Microsoft)
We will try to answer all the questions we can, though.

 

Moderator: Ed_H (Microsoft)
I will ask the hosts to introduce themselves.

Host: Cameron (Microsoft)
Hello! My name is Cameron Beccario and I am a developer on the Visual Basic compiler team.

Host: David (Microsoft)
Hello, My name is David Guyer, and I've been a tester on VB Deployment for 3+ years now. I can help answer questions about Setup projects, and new features in Deployment in Whidbey such as ClickOnce and Bootstrapping.

Host: Jason (Microsoft)
Hi! My name is Jason Cooke, and I'm a programmer/writer for Visual Basic User Education.

Host: Jay (Microsoft)
Hi I'm Jay, a Program Manager on the VB team.

Host: Joe (Microsoft)
Hi, I'm Joe, a Program Manager on the VB team.

Host: PaulV (Microsoft)
Hi, I'm Paul Vick, a Technical Lead for Visual Basic .NET, specializing in the language and the compiler.

Host: SteveLee (Microsoft)
Hey there! I've worked on a bunch of different dev tools products, and I'm currently a lead program manager on VB.

Steve_MS : Hi all - I'm Steve Stein a Programmer Writer on the Visual Basic User Education Team.

 

Moderator: Ed_H (Microsoft)
And I am Ed Hickey, VS Communities PM. Glad you all could make it today!

Moderator: Ed_H (Microsoft)
Let's get started! Fire away with your questions for our hosts.

Start of Chat

Host: SteveLee (Microsoft)
Q: (from xyz) Yes I see a sneak preview has appeared but is it a full function beta and when realistically will a more widespread beta become available.
A: The preview that we released at PDC doesn't have all the functionality that we expect in the "real" beta.

Host: SteveLee (Microsoft)
xyz (and all): We'll have a beta some time next year; after that we don't have any firm dates that we can talk about.

Host: SteveLee (Microsoft)
A: The more widespread beta will be out some time next year, we don't have a firm date that we can talk about yet.

Host: SteveLee (Microsoft)
Q: (from Bill) So fellas (on top) are the bits we're looking at close to then UI we're going to see in the "real" product?
A: It's pretty close, but I'm sure we'll see some more changes. Is there anything in particular that you're wondering about?

Host: SteveLee (Microsoft)
Q: (whoops--wrong window ;-) (from Bill) Yes, Yukon/Whidbey interaction--where is the promised "create logins/set permissions" interfaces?
A: Sorry, I don't know the answer to that one. Feel free to ping me offline and I can find the answer for you.

Host: SteveLee (Microsoft)
Q: (from Joe) Hey can anyone tell me why and what these darn control collections are there for

Host: PaulV (Microsoft)
Q: Will there be an profiling or code coverage tools for vb in whidbey?
A: At the moment, the only thing that we're providing is the CLR memory profiler (https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=86ce6052-d7f4-4aeb-9b7a-94635beebdda&DisplayLang=en). There are also third party profilers and code coverage tools.

Host: Cameron (Microsoft)
Q: trinary operator?
A: I believe you're referring to the "ternary" operator, which is "?" in C++. We don't have any plans to support this operator in VB above and beyond the IIF function.

Host: SteveLee (Microsoft)
A: (re: control arrays) The goal was to bring back the same functionality from VB6. It's a convenient way to handle events from multiple controls at once.

Host: SteveLee (Microsoft)
A: (re: control arrays again) That said, if there are things you don't like about it, let us know and we can look at improving it.

Host: PaulV (Microsoft)
Q: This may have been asked already, but will VB getting an equivalent of "using" in Whidbey?
A: Yes. It will be a block statement, so it will be like:

Host: PaulV (Microsoft)
Using x As New File() : ... : End Using

Host: PaulV (Microsoft)
Don't quote me exactly on the syntax, I'm working from memory.

Host: PaulV (Microsoft)
(As far as the ternary operator/IIF goes, I'll add that we certainly keep getting requests for it, so it is something that we think about.)

Host: Jay (Microsoft)
Q: For the XML comments, anything new (besides existing) beyond what we are seeing in c#?
A: Nicholas_Paldino_MVP: Thanks for the feedback. I'll forward these suggestions along to the doc teams and ensure that we have some samples for the transaction functionality.

Host: Jay (Microsoft)
A: The VB support will be consistent with what you having in C#. Is there functionality beyond that you would like to see?

Host: Cameron (Microsoft)
Q: In Visual Studio Net some screens don't cannot made wider, by instance the add reference window is almost unusable for me
A: I have requested this several times myself, too. :) Thankfully, I recently saw that the add reference window is resizeable! I don't work on the team that builds this dialog, so I hope they decide to keep the behavior.

Host: PaulV (Microsoft)
And as for the question about the most significant change in Whidbey, it kind of depends on what are you're most interested in. My opinions follow...

Host: PaulV (Microsoft)
From an IDE perspective, there's no question that edit and continue is the biggest feature in Whidbey. I know not everyone outside of the VB world is sold on it, but I think it's awesome. :-) But even though edit and continue hogs the spotlight there are lots of other really cool IDE feature as well.

Host: PaulV (Microsoft)
From a language perspective, I'd say the biggest feature is generics. But it's going to be interesting because I don't think the real impact of generics is going to be felt for a while. IDE changes have an immediate impact, but language changes can take some time to filter their way into examples, class libraries, etc.

Host: Cameron (Microsoft)
Q: It's almost as if the developers creating VB.NET were C++ or C# developers. ;)
A: Actually, Microsoft.VisualBasic.dll, the VB runtime, is written in 100% pure Visual Basic.

Host: SteveLee (Microsoft)
Q: (from Joe) how can we better prepare for WinFX? What features in 2.0 allow us to prepare for the new age?
A: (WinFx) The most straightforward thing you can do is to learn managed code. (But you're probably already doing that...) WinFX is going to add a lot of great new functionality, but we're investing a lot of resources to make sure that it's very...

Host: SteveLee (Microsoft)
A: (WinFx) ...straightforward to move your existing managed code forward.

Host: Steve (Microsoft)
Q: Anyone create a stored procedure using Widbey but write it in VB?
A: There will be examples of creating sprocs, functions, etc. all written in VB (as well as C#) when Whidbey is released.

Host: PaulV (Microsoft)
Q: BillV: Yea, especially since most of the new examples are written in C#. It's almost as if the developers creating VB.NET were C++ or C# developers.
A: Well, these days I spend more time writing in VB.NET than C++... When I go back to having to write some C++, I have to keep reminding myself to put the darn type first. ;-)

Host: PaulV (Microsoft)
As far as generics examples go specifically, we definitely have not been talking about generics as much as the C# team, partially because generics are _really_ big for C# programmers who came from C++. But expect to hear more from us now that PDC is passed.

Host: PaulV (Microsoft)
Q: I loaded an application I did from back in 1.0 on a machine that had 1.0 and 1.2(2.0) and it said the compatiablity visual baisc is missing.
A: This could be a problem with the build that you've got. The compatibility library certainly continues to be a part of VB.

Host: SteveLee (Microsoft)
Q: (from Joe) From what I have seen, WinFX is closer to winforms development then asp.net is that true, my understanding is it's kind of like mini terminal services windows in a way
A: It's a little to early for us to make blanket statements like that. The best I can tell you is to take a look at the info on the Longhorn dev center, and the bits that we released at PDC, and to keep in mind that lots of stuff will change.

Host: Cameron (Microsoft)
Q: What does the generics constraint syntax look like (I heared it changed) and what set of constraints will VB.NET support?
A: The syntax for constraints looks like:

Host: Cameron (Microsoft)
Class Foo(Of T As Constraint1, U As {Constraint2, Constraint3})

Host: Cameron (Microsoft)
So, if you have more than one constraint, you put them in {} to signify a "set" of constraints. Furthermore, we also plan to support the "New" constraint.

Host: Jason (Microsoft)
Q: Cameron: So there is NO excuse for not having VB.NET examples for the new functionality.
A: To be sure, the topics in the alpha need more samples. But we are planning to write many more VB samples for the beta, and even more for the final version.

Host: JayRoxe (Microsoft)
Q: Will the Whidbey have any support to produce XAML from the designer?
A: phuongle: Using XAML will require Longhorn which won't be available for a while yet. Visual Studio will have integrated support for XAML in later releases.

Host: JayRoxe (Microsoft)
For those who haven't already seen it, you may want to go download a copy of the VB.NET Resource Kit. It's a free download that has over $900 of free controls from vendors like ComponentOne, Sax, Dundas and Infragistics. It's also got a lot of technical whitepapers, migration resources, etc.

Host: SteveLee (Microsoft)
A: (re a bunch of comments about C# and VB) Interestingly, we're starting to hear from more customers who have used or evaluated C#, and have chosen to move to VB instead.

Host: Jay (Microsoft)
Q: Besides edit and continue which looks really good, can you elaborate on any other improvments to the debugging system in whidbey?
A: In additional to edit and continue we are looking to improve support for debugging exceptions, support for nested break states and improving the tips that show current variable values under the debugger.

Host: JayRoxe (Microsoft)
Q: Besides edit and continue which looks really good, can you elaborate on any other improvments to the debugging system in whidbey?
A: Whidbey will also offer AutoCorrect which catches common programming mistakes while you're creating the code and offers corrections for them. While not strictly debugging, it can save you from debugging later.

Host: PaulV (Microsoft)
Q: Joe: I still haven't heard why the compatiablity issue I have has come up?
A: It's not clear why you're having the problem that you are. Can you submit a bug report for it? Either that, or post a message on the PDC newsgroups, which is a better place to try and figure out what's going wrong.

Host: David (Microsoft)
Q: Making helpfiles, deployment will that be improved?
A: There are a number of improvements planned in Deployment. 1) Web Setups can target a Web server with multiple sites. 2) Setups have better control over Everyone/Just Me 3) There's a new bootstrapper used by Setups and ClickOnce that will allow you to bootstrap multiple components, and add your own. 4) ClickOnce is a new deployment technology, that is built into Windows Applications. In brief, it allows you site, makes updating apps easy, and the apps run in a "secure" sandbox by default. Also, the apps are isolated from the rest of the machine, so we are hoping admins on corporate networks will consider ClickOnce apps safe for wide distribution w/o IT intervention..

Host: SteveLee (Microsoft)
Q: how has smart clients improved?
A: There are a ton of new features in Windows Forms, including some great designer features, new data design time, and lots of new controls. One of the other huge improvements is with deployment. The new ClickOnce deployment feature makes deploying and upgrading client apps a much much better experience.

Host: RGreen (Microsoft)
Q: How has smart cilents improved?
A: In addition to what Steve said, you can expect better built in support for Smartphones and other cool mobile devices.

Host: David (Microsoft)
Q: Now you have to download and run a policy file, I would think they could do something built in to where it asks you when it starts up and setups that appliacation with greater rights.
A: That's part of ClickOnce actually. With ClickOnce, you can declare the permissions required by your App in the IDE, and at install time, if the requested permissions are greater than the current Zone permissions, the install dialog will alert the user that additional permissions are needed, and grant them if approved. Also, for internal corporate apps, there will be a technology to sign a ClickOnce deployment so that the permissions prompt isn't displayed.
A: (Adding on to David's answer) Another goal that we have is to make it easier to write client apps that don't require any special security privileges, so that you just don't have to worry about it. It's the features that we call "intellisense in zone" and "debug in zone".

Host: Cameron (Microsoft)
Q: Besides edit and continue which looks really good, can you elaborate on any other improvments to the debugging system in whidbey?
A: Many of the features we've added are to help you create bug-free code while you write it. For example, the compiler uses definite assignment analysis to warn that you’re using an uninitialized variable. With this feature, you should be able to catch NullReferenceExceptions at design time, not later on in the debugger at runtime.

Host: David (Microsoft)
Q: yea but that's the install at client techonlogy I'm talking about run from URL
A: ClickOnce supercedes the "run from URL/No Touch Deployment" technology. No Touch will still be in the system, but ClickOnce is a significant improvement. There won't be major improvements in the policy areas for No-Touch since most of the effort is going into ClickOnce.

Host: SteveLee (Microsoft)
A: Joe, ClickOnce encompasses both the "app update" type and the URL type. You can find more info on MSDN, or ask us on the newsgroups.

Moderator: Ed_H (Microsoft)
This has been a GREAT chat. Thank you to everyone. Unfortunately, it is time to go. Thanks for participating, and we'll see you next time!

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