7 ms·

Visual Studio 2015 CTP 5 Available

134 points by trickz 12y ago

jarjoura 12y ago
I remember reading that Microsoft was moving the WPF framework into maintenance mode as they focus on the WinRT variant of UI development. Interesting that from the release notes, WPF appears to be getting feature development again. Hard to know without Windows 10 consumer announcements if Microsoft internally is back-tracking on the idea of fullscreen desktop apps.
- mcintyre1994 12y ago
  Windows 10 looks like it will feature windowed 'modern' apps so it'd be surprising if they didn't push those apps even further now.
- _random_ 12y ago
  Enterprise backlashed and they had to respond. There is no need to suffer through backwards-compatible legacy stuff (JS, HTML, CSS) if you are not building something public-facing.
- Encosia 12y ago
  Visual Studio itself is a WPF app, for what it's worth. I can't imagine Visual Studio being rewritten as a "Modern" app any time soon. So, it makes sense that MS will continue to invest in WPF.
  - aaronbrethorst 12y ago
    Parts of VS may have a WPF UI, but I can assure you the vast majority of the codebase is C++.
    - Encosia 12y ago
      When no dialogs are open, the overwhelming majority of the UI is WPF now though, to my knowledge. I remember running debug builds of 2010 that showed paint rectangles and there was basically nothing that wasn't WPF even in that first WPF version.
- tonyedgecombe 12y ago
  I'm not expecting much, the roadmap is pretty underwhelming: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/wpf/archive/2014/11/12/the-roadmap-for-wpf-blog-post.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/wpf/archive/2014/11/12/the-roadmap-f...
putzdown 12y ago
Does anyone know how the support for C++11 is looking in this version? It would be pretty great if Microsoft could finally close [the gap](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vcblog/archive/2014/06/11/c-11-14-feature-tables-for-visual-studio-14-ctp1.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vcblog/archive/2014/06/11/c-11-14-fe...) on C++11 support a mere four years after GCC and Clang completed their support for the standard. That would also give some hope that Visual Studio might have full support for C++14 in a year or two (which GCC and Clang have today). Is there an updated support chart somewhere?
- jbandela1 12y ago
  They are making progress. The latest chart I saw (for the 2015 Preview ) is at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vcblog/archive/2014/11/17/c-11-14-17-features-in-vs-2015-preview.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vcblog/archive/2014/11/17/c-11-14-17...
- Someone 12y ago
  http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vcblog/archive/2014/11/17/c-11-14-17-features-in-vs-2015-preview.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vcblog/archive/2014/11/17/c-11-14-17... (via http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vcblog/archive/2014/11/12/visual-studio-2015-preview-now-available.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vcblog/archive/2014/11/12/visual-stu...)
  - eco 12y ago
    Good to see the two things I've tried to use and wouldn't work in VC++ 2013 (generic lambdas and noexcept) have been implemented.
- pjmlp 12y ago
  Microsoft is doing a mix of C++11 and C++14 support. http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Visual-Studio/Connect-event-2014/311 http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Visual-Studio/Connect-event-... Still, outside the open source world, from all vendors selling compilers, Microsoft is the most up to date. Before anyone mentions ICC, no not even version 15 is fully compliant. https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/c0x-features-supported-by-intel-c-compiler https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/c0x-features-suppo... IBM just realeased XLC with partial C++11 support. Others are even worse.
taspeotis 12y ago
I was really surprised to read this: We have rebuilt the XAML language service on top of the .NET Compiler Platform ("Roslyn") to provide an improved XAML editing experience with rich IntelliSense that is faster and more reliable. My understanding was that Roslyn was heavily geared towards languages that are largely procedural like C# and VB.NET. So functional languages, like F#, aren't suited to being parsed by Roslyn. But all of a sudden they're using Roslyn with a declarative language (XAML)?
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  XAML is a markup language, that counts as declarative, but you can think of it as a subtraction of C# (the ability to create instances and bind their properties), it doesn't add any advanced declarative programming features and definitely nothing fancy type-wise as in F#. I don't know what they did, but it seems reasonable that it would share a type checker with C# but have a unique parser.
- useerup 12y ago
  Having used XAML recently for purposes not even related to WPF, I can definitively see what this might bring. XAML is at its core a format to describe an object graph declaratively. The objects can be any .NET object. The current XAML editor already understands a lot about the objects you describe - i.e. it loads the assembly and introspects the types to give you intellisense while editing. The current one is not without its quirks and bugs, however. I'd be thrilled to have a new, robust editor that intrinsically understands classes, properties, value converters etc to offer more assistance when writing raw XAML.
graycat 12y ago
Apparently VS -- Visual Studio ALM -- Application Lifestyle Management CTP -- Community Technology Preview TFS -- Team Foundation Server

134 points by trickz 12y ago

I remember reading that Microsoft was moving the WPF framework into maintenance mode as they focus on the WinRT variant of UI development. Interesting that from the release notes, WPF appears to be getting feature development again. Hard to know without Windows 10 consumer announcements if Microsoft internally is back-tracking on the idea of fullscreen desktop apps.

mcintyre1994 12y ago
Windows 10 looks like it will feature windowed 'modern' apps so it'd be surprising if they didn't push those apps even further now.
_random_ 12y ago
Enterprise backlashed and they had to respond. There is no need to suffer through backwards-compatible legacy stuff (JS, HTML, CSS) if you are not building something public-facing.
Encosia 12y ago
Visual Studio itself is a WPF app, for what it's worth. I can't imagine Visual Studio being rewritten as a "Modern" app any time soon. So, it makes sense that MS will continue to invest in WPF.
- aaronbrethorst 12y ago
  Parts of VS may have a WPF UI, but I can assure you the vast majority of the codebase is C++.
  - Encosia 12y ago
    When no dialogs are open, the overwhelming majority of the UI is WPF now though, to my knowledge. I remember running debug builds of 2010 that showed paint rectangles and there was basically nothing that wasn't WPF even in that first WPF version.
tonyedgecombe 12y ago
I'm not expecting much, the roadmap is pretty underwhelming: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/wpf/archive/2014/11/12/the-roadmap-for-wpf-blog-post.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/wpf/archive/2014/11/12/the-roadmap-f...

putzdown 12y ago

Does anyone know how the support for C++11 is looking in this version? It would be pretty great if Microsoft could finally close [the gap](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vcblog/archive/2014/06/11/c-11-14-feature-tables-for-visual-studio-14-ctp1.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vcblog/archive/2014/06/11/c-11-14-fe...) on C++11 support a mere four years after GCC and Clang completed their support for the standard. That would also give some hope that Visual Studio might have full support for C++14 in a year or two (which GCC and Clang have today). Is there an updated support chart somewhere?

jbandela1 12y ago
They are making progress. The latest chart I saw (for the 2015 Preview ) is at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vcblog/archive/2014/11/17/c-11-14-17-features-in-vs-2015-preview.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vcblog/archive/2014/11/17/c-11-14-17...
Someone 12y ago
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vcblog/archive/2014/11/17/c-11-14-17-features-in-vs-2015-preview.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vcblog/archive/2014/11/17/c-11-14-17... (via http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vcblog/archive/2014/11/12/visual-studio-2015-preview-now-available.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vcblog/archive/2014/11/12/visual-stu...)
- eco 12y ago
  Good to see the two things I've tried to use and wouldn't work in VC++ 2013 (generic lambdas and noexcept) have been implemented.
pjmlp 12y ago
Microsoft is doing a mix of C++11 and C++14 support. http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Visual-Studio/Connect-event-2014/311 http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Visual-Studio/Connect-event-... Still, outside the open source world, from all vendors selling compilers, Microsoft is the most up to date. Before anyone mentions ICC, no not even version 15 is fully compliant. https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/c0x-features-supported-by-intel-c-compiler https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/c0x-features-suppo... IBM just realeased XLC with partial C++11 support. Others are even worse.

taspeotis 12y ago

I was really surprised to read this: We have rebuilt the XAML language service on top of the .NET Compiler Platform ("Roslyn") to provide an improved XAML editing experience with rich IntelliSense that is faster and more reliable. My understanding was that Roslyn was heavily geared towards languages that are largely procedural like C# and VB.NET. So functional languages, like F#, aren't suited to being parsed by Roslyn. But all of a sudden they're using Roslyn with a declarative language (XAML)?

seanmcdirmid 12y ago
XAML is a markup language, that counts as declarative, but you can think of it as a subtraction of C# (the ability to create instances and bind their properties), it doesn't add any advanced declarative programming features and definitely nothing fancy type-wise as in F#. I don't know what they did, but it seems reasonable that it would share a type checker with C# but have a unique parser.
useerup 12y ago
Having used XAML recently for purposes not even related to WPF, I can definitively see what this might bring. XAML is at its core a format to describe an object graph declaratively. The objects can be any .NET object. The current XAML editor already understands a lot about the objects you describe - i.e. it loads the assembly and introspects the types to give you intellisense while editing. The current one is not without its quirks and bugs, however. I'd be thrilled to have a new, robust editor that intrinsically understands classes, properties, value converters etc to offer more assistance when writing raw XAML.

graycat 12y ago

Apparently VS -- Visual Studio ALM -- Application Lifestyle Management CTP -- Community Technology Preview TFS -- Team Foundation Server