Frameworks
Going Large
Visual Studio now supports myriad development platforms.
When Microsoft launched .NET Framework 3.0 back in November 2006, it heralded a rush of frameworks, foundations, programming models and languages that continues -- unabated -- to this day.
.NET development has, in short, gone large. As VSM Executive Editor Kathleen Richards reports in our cover story on the evolution of Visual Studio 2010 (see "IDE Evolution"), developers find themselves confronted with a lot of hard decisions. Decisions that have lasting implications both for your applications and for your career.
Today, Visual Studio supports development for Windows Presentation Foundation, Silverlight, ASP.NET, AJAX and WinForms. And the next version extends its reach in so many directions, it's almost silly. There's ASP.NET-friendly cloud development for Windows Azure, freshly integrated SharePoint tooling, and support for parallel programming and functional languages like F#. And I didn't even mention the Dynamic Language Runtime.
Consequently, developers need to grasp the big picture even as they master the minutiae, which explains the changes in this issue of
Visual Studio Magazine
. We've adopted a new design, a fresh approach and a broader mission. We'll continue to provide detailed tutorials. Familiar columns including
Ask Kathleen
,
C# Corner
and
On VB
will appear in every issue of
VSM
in our new Language Lab section. But you'll also see a broader exploration of emerging technologies and challenges facing developers -- like the changes posed by Visual Studio 2010. So take your time. Check out the new DevDisasters department from the folks at The Daily WTF. Read Andrew Brust's Redmond Review column. And get back to me with your thoughts on what we can do better -- I'm at
mdesmond@1105media.com
.
About the Author
Michael Desmond is editor in chief of Visual Studio Magazine and former editor in chief of Redmond Developer News. He has served
as senior editor of news at PC World and executive editor at Multimedia
World magazine, and has written for dozens of publications and Web sites.
Desmond has also written four computing books, including Microsoft
Office 2003 in 10 Simple Steps or Less.