The Road to Visual Studio 11 Beta and .NET 4.5 Beta
Today, I’m excited to announce that Visual Studio 11 Beta and .NET 4.5 Beta will be available in just a few days, on February 29th, 2012. These releases will be “go live,” meaning they will enable usage in production environments.
Industry Trends
There are a number of industry trends that have significantly influenced the investments we’ve made in Visual Studio 11 and .NET 4.5, and even the engineering processes we’ve used to bring this software to light.
Historically, the Developer Division at Microsoft focused entirely on the “professional developer,” on the approximately 10 million people that built software as their primary vocation. Over the last few years, however, the software development landscape has significantly changed. What used to be 10 million developers is now upwards of 100 million, spanning not only “professional developers,” but also students, entrepreneurs, and in general people who want to build an app and put it up on an app store. From professionals to hobbyists, developers today build applications that span from the business world to the consumer world, and that run on a wide range of client and server platforms and devices.
Not coincidentally, we’ve also seen a monumental growth in the use of devices. Many of us now have one or more devices with us at any point in time, whether it’s a phone, a tablet, a laptop, or any number of other form factors. We expect these devices to provide us with natural modes of interaction, like touch and speech. We need them to provide us with up-to-date views on our virtual world, with our data syncing seamlessly. To enable that flow of information, we see more and more devices connecting up to continuous services living in the “cloud.” Further, these devices and the apps they run are no longer just for our use at home or work, but rather span all of our worlds, wherever we may be. In this light, we’ve started to witness the “consumerization of IT.”
As developers, this proliferation of connected devices and continuous services has had a profound impact on the kinds of solutions we build and deploy. More than ever we think about architecting our applications in a service-oriented manner, and more than ever we think about how consumer-like experiences should permeate even the most routine of business applications.
In addition to shifts in application patterns, the rising number of developers building apps, the ubiquity of devices running them, and the momentum of apps moving to the cloud, we’ve also seen changes in how these apps are envisioned, delivered, and managed. The online social experiences that we’ve come to rely on for fellowship in our personal lives now also find their way into our work lives. The fast-paced nature of the modern software era has necessitated more rapid ship cycles, with frequent servicing updates, and tools for collaboration and communication have become crucial. Furthermore, this has led to a rise in agile software development practices, and an increased importance of the “DevOps” cycle.
Delivering Value
It’s with these and other trends as a backdrop that we set out to build Visual Studio 11 and .NET 4.5 and that have guided them to their pending beta releases.
All developers, from professionals to non-professionals, need great tools to create modern consumer and business applications that delight users and that span from client to cloud. Towards that end, I’m thrilled at the depth of alignment we’ve had in the development of Visual Studio 11 and Windows 8, which have been engineered together with these goals in mind. The effect is obvious: Visual Studio 11 provides a best-in-class experience for developing apps for Windows. We’ve applied the same level of thoughtfulness across all Microsoft platforms, so whether your app runs on Windows, Windows Phone, Windows Server, or Windows Azure, Visual Studio 11 and .NET 4.5 enable you to transform your ideas for those applications into reality.
Being able to build such applications productively is a key piece of what Visual Studio 11 and .NET 4.5 deliver. Whether you spend your work days building enterprise software, or your spare time building the next great breakthrough app, it’s crucial that you make the most of your time spent. Visual Studio 11 combines a simplified development environment with high-productivity features to help you to maximize your time investment. These productivity enhancements go beyond the IDE, and extend through the languages, libraries, and runtimes on which your software relies.
Building software is also often a social experience, and an individual developer’s productivity is impacted by the efficiency of the team. With Visual Studio 11, we enable everyone, from the product owner to the designer to the developer to the tester to the customer, to be empowered to create and release high-quality software and services. These collaboration and agility needs extend from the largest of teams down to the smallest. Team Foundation Server Express, which is free to individuals and to teams of up to 5 users, provides an easy way for those small teams to start embarking on the DevOps cycle.
On to Beta
To learn more about the Visual Studio 11 Beta and .NET 4.5 Beta news we announced today, please see Jason Zander’s blog. And as always, I look forward to your feedback as we release the Beta next week.
Namaste!
Comments
Anonymous
February 23, 2012
Ну и дизайнAnonymous
February 23, 2012
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February 23, 2012
/ CAPSLOCK! NUM! PLEASE ADD THOSE TWO TO THE STATUSBAR. /Anonymous
February 23, 2012
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February 23, 2012
Can't wait!Anonymous
February 23, 2012
I can't wait for the release - I always like new toys :)Anonymous
February 23, 2012
IT WILL BE AN EXCELLENT IDE FOR ALL MY LOLCODE WORK.Anonymous
February 23, 2012
Please lose the All Caps in the UI. Your UI experts should know that all caps reduces the shape contrast, making the text harder to comprehend at a glance. uxmovement.com/.../all-caps-hard-for-users-to-readAnonymous
February 23, 2012
I'm looking forward to .NET 4.5, especially the async language changes and the long awaited updates to the Entity Framework (e.g. enum support wahoo!). However, the monochrome IDE theme is aweful, and the removal of the great colour icon set that Visual Studio has sported up until now, is a real let down. Very disappointed with the proposed IDE look and feel overall. Far from looking modern, it's looks dated and depressing :-(Anonymous
February 23, 2012
good job...Anonymous
February 23, 2012
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February 23, 2012
Please Soma, please, do something so that we at least have an option to use color icons in Solution Explorer. This is madness :(Anonymous
February 23, 2012
Soma, could you please improve VS11 (BETA) in these following areas?
- Be more colorful: use colorful icons, and remove all gray color for the background whenever possible; use more white instead. Gray makes me think I'm living in the dark ages, am I?
- Use ALL CAPS with caution: please don't use ALL caps unless it's EXTREMELY necessary, or change its style to be less in size (smaller) and more in weight (bolder) in order to justify the making-sense-ness of ALL CAPS. Thanks.
Anonymous
February 23, 2012
Oh! Dear lord! What have you done !?Anonymous
February 23, 2012
Flat and SolidAnonymous
February 23, 2012
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February 23, 2012
This interface like a photoshop's interface... Even so, not bad...Anonymous
February 23, 2012
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February 23, 2012
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February 23, 2012
I look forward to the new Visual Studio however please do away with the CAPS. It looks terrible. And the coloring is so dullboring compared to previous versions...so boring.Anonymous
February 23, 2012
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February 24, 2012
the new UI is ugly. please give us an option to change it back to the VS10 UI.Anonymous
February 24, 2012
I can not believe my eyes...I can't believe that monochrome isn't an option for those that want it. I realize some may like monochrome, but trust me...many do not. For me, it's absolutely repulsive and nauseating. Please allow those of us who want to, to keep the VS 2010 look. Please.Anonymous
February 24, 2012
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February 24, 2012
Hideous, can't believe anyone there seriously thought that this is an improvement over VS 2010. Dull and depressing and the icons are awful, people use both color and shape to recognize them. Ditch it, no way would I use it.Anonymous
February 24, 2012
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February 24, 2012
There is so much wrong with this new UI I don't even know where to start. Look how many negative comments you are seeing ... how did this even get to see the light of day? You need to scrap this idea and try again ... with color next time.Anonymous
February 24, 2012
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February 25, 2012
Greyscale icons, caps lock? Are you kidding me? It's not April Fools' Day yet.Anonymous
February 25, 2012
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February 25, 2012
As long as VC++ compiles small executables and the Class Viewer is fixed... it will be OK and may even make me consider the switch from my old and obsolete compiler (if and only if can compile executables for Windows XP et.al. via tool-sets). I am not overly concerned about the latest sophisms coming from the team: lack of colors and letters in caps, as long as the IDE serves its main purpose. And if it has many colors and the proper fonts and letters sizes but fails in its main purpose?. This raises a new concern: what if the compiler doesn't live up to our expectations? That would be a cause of serious concern indeed and unfortunately we can't rule out that possibility: with 100M programmers, loosing 1 or 2 millions will have very little impact in their users base. I think they should add the Ishihara test to the list of prerequisites for VS2011 to check if the lack of colors may have any impact in our productivity: this IDE will NOT be a problem for people with some degree of monochromacy or color blindness. Unfortunately (or fortunately), only 0.00001% of the population is affected, therefore, I guess it will not be very popular among the other 99.99999%. The new style is a good example of what happens when somebody emphasizes too much a false sense of individualism and originality to the point of being odd. The other day I was thinking about how much this tools have become so heterogeneous to the point that I reflected that Visual Studio should be better named Frankie after Dr.Frankenstein, their authors being like modern Dr. Frankensteins, amalgamating parts from different bodies (technologies) into a single body (IDE) and the result being an unmanageable monstrosity.Anonymous
February 25, 2012
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February 26, 2012
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February 26, 2012
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February 27, 2012
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February 27, 2012
It doesn't matter how many new features you put VS and .BLOAT if you wont fix the stuff that has been broken since it first was released.. I truely have ZERO respect for you and your developers, personally I feel you and your developers are completely incompentent! You have not released anything that even resembles stable software since visual studio 6.0.Anonymous
February 27, 2012
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February 27, 2012
Ohh, is that VS code named 'ALBINO'? Joke beside: This is a bad piece of UI. Somebody must have told you guys at MSFT that structure and distinction between UI-elements isn't a design goal any more. Just look at the project-property screen. In vs10 there is a clear relation between the 'tab' cards on the left and the content on the right. A good visual clue, that one has to click on the item left to view content on the right. Now there are some labels that are clickable (how to distinct which ones are and which aren't?). Just like Blend, one has to move the mouse over and be surprised whether the elements appearance changes (hence probably clickable) or not (it's only a dumb label or symbol). Sorry, but a UI that may (I find that worth a debate, to) be well suited for a mobile device with a very small display and very few info to show is therefore not necessarily well suited for a full fledged application like VS, Blend or office. (your Win8 guys will experience this in the business/enterprise market) Please redesign! VSAnonymous
February 28, 2012
Is this a public beta?Anonymous
February 28, 2012
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February 28, 2012
jbooker: Yes, the beta will be publicly available on Feb 29th.Anonymous
March 15, 2012
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March 27, 2012
+1 for colors +1 for NO all capsAnonymous
April 05, 2012
In my experience the Beta "look and feel" doesn't always translate through to the final release.Anonymous
July 21, 2013
Where can I find the latest version? I spent an hour searching for this :)Anonymous
July 24, 2013
something so that we at least have an option to use color icons in Solution Explorer.