Microsoft Visual Studio 11 and .NET 4.5 Betas Out Next Week

Visual Studio 11 also features new team development capabilities to support the entire application lifecycle – from architecture and user interface design to code creation, insight and analysis, deployment, testing and validation.

Application lifecycle management (ALM) capabilities help project stakeholders work together at every step in the development cycle to deliver high-quality applications.

Team developers

Visual Studio 11 Team Foundation Server (TFS) Beta provides the collaboration hub at the centre of the Visual Studio ALM software, Zander said.

From start to finish, teams can track projects through each stage of software development, from keeping tabs on version control to continually deploying software updates. The new ALM capabilities help ensure diverse team members integrate as one in the development cycle.

Zander said that up to 90 percent of the Visual Studio development team uses Agile development methods, in particular Scrum.

TFS automates the software delivery process and gives developers the tools they need to effectively manage software development projects throughout the IT lifecycle.

In addition to the Visual Studio 11 Beta, Microsoft also announced Team Foundation Server Express, which is an easy way for small teams to try out TFS. TFS Express includes core developer features, such as Source Code Control, Work Item Tracking, Build Automation and Agile Taskboard, and is available for free to individuals and teams of up to five members.

Moreover, the Beta release of Visual Studio 11 includes support for Windows 8 and Web development, which are supported by Visual Studio Express for Windows 8 and Visual Studio 11 Express for Web, respectively.

With.NET Framework 4.5, Microsoft has enhanced .NET to enable developers to be as productive as possible while building rich, reliable and high-performance software in managed code. Microsoft said these enhancements were made across the .NET Framework, including in the following:

• Languages: To help developers deliver responsive clients and scalable servers, the C# and Visual Basic languages now have built-in support for writing asynchronous code almost as easily as if it were synchronous. And to help developers tackle data-complex problems, F# integrates Type Providers to make data access trivial in F# programs and components.

• Performance: The Common Language Runtime has been overhauled to provide better performance, in particular for server applications and services. With additions such as background server garbage collection, multi-core background JIT compilation and profile-guided optimisation, managed applications can now start faster and run with better throughput and lower latency.

• Networking: With the proliferation of devices and continuous services in the cloud, .NET Framework 4.5 builds upon the high-quality networking libraries already available in .NET to further enable the development of increasingly connected applications. New support spans from modern HTTP libraries to WebSockets to support for contract-first service development.

Overall, Microsoft has made a slew of enhancements to the .NET Framework, from regular expression processing to better support for compression standards, enhanced support for HTML5, developer productivity enhancements in Entity Framework, optimised mobile experiences through ASP.NET, and more, ensuring .NET Framework 4.5 has something new for developers building for the client and the cloud.

Interested developers will be able to download Visual Studio 11 Beta and .NET Framework 4.5 Beta starting on 29 February.

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