Microsoft Visual Studio .NET Professional Upgrade

The common runtime is language-neutral so, for example, Visual Basic programmers can use components written in C# and vice versa. Other languages, such as COBOL and FORTRAN, can plug into Visual Studio, and Microsoft provides a version of the Java language called J#.

Overall, Visual Studio .NET is a radical break from the past for Microsoft. C# is an entirely new language, aimed at C and C++ programmers looking for something safer and more productive. Visual Basic .NET is a new twist on the old Microsoft favorite, losing compatibility with earlier versions, but gaining full object orientation as well as access to all the .NET libraries. These two languages, along with J#, have full support for the visual design tools in Visual Studio .NET. Also included is JScript .NET, Microsoft's version of JavaScript, although this comes without a form designer. Visual C++ is similar to earlier versions and is the only compiler included that can build old-style Windows executables. With a compiler switch, it can also target .NET, making it particularly flexible.

Visual Studio .NET has two distinct form designers. Windows Forms are for traditional Windows applications, but managed by the common runtime. Web Forms are ASP.NET pages, which means they run on Web servers and work over the Internet. Microsoft has made designing and coding Windows Forms and Web Forms as similar as possible so that both types of applications can share components and much of the complexity of coding Web applications is kept hidden. Another key feature is Web services, which lets developers create an XML interface for an application so that it can be called across the Web or from any platform or language. XML support generally is strong, with a range of classes for parsing and transforming XML data. There is also a visual designer for XML Schema.

There are a few points against Visual Studio .NET. One is that, like earlier versions, it only creates applications that run on Windows. Web applications are a partial exception, in that they support cross-platform clients, but deployment requires a Windows Web server. Another factor is that, with its multiple compilers and mountains of documentation, Visual Studio .NET eats up gigabytes of disk space, and the IDE tends to be slow with less than around 384 MB RAM. Serious developers will take this in stride, but casual users could have difficulty. Fortunately, the applications created have more modest system requirements, although Windows 95 is not supported. Finally, developers coming from earlier editions face a lot of learning due to radical changes in both Visual Basic and ASP.

Despite these minor issues and a steep learning curve, Visual Studio .NET is an extremely versatile, sophisticated, and capable development tool. --Tim Anderson, Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com Product Description
Visual Studio .NET Professional enables developers to build the next generation of Internet applications with XML Web services, database applications with XML, and RAD for the .NET Server. It enables developers to build solutions for the broadest range of clients--from Web applications to Windows to thin-client devices to smart devices. The RAD capabilities provide a shared IDE and a choice of programming languages, including Visual Basic, C++, C#, and Java. Visual Studio .NET Professional is RAD for the programmable Web.

In XML, Visual Studio .NET developers can build data-driven applications using built-in ADO.NET tools that target a variety of databases, including SQL Server, Oracle, or any other XML source. With support for XML, ADO.NET enables developers to share data across computing platforms. Additionally, Visual Studio .NET includes the Microsoft Data Engine (MSDE), a SQL Server-compatible database that provides programmers with a viable development database and natively supports XML.

Visual Studio .NET allows programmers to create and deploy critical server-based programming. With Visual Studio .NET, developers can visually compose middle-tier components using the Visual Component Designer (VCD). The VCD enables developers to drag and drop nonvisual objects such as message queues, timers, and event logs to a design surface, automatically discovering all necessary server-based resources and configuring required components.

Note: This is an upgrade version. Any owner of Visual Studio 97 or Visual Studio 6.0 and later--except standard versions--is eligible for the upgrade.

And my ASP 3.0 Professional book. No more.

Microsoft have lowered the bar for active, data-driven website development. It's almost as easy as drop and drag.

OK. You still have to know how HTML works and how a database is put together and be able to write code without tripping over your feet. Not all that difficult, and there are any number of books to help you along.

But the bottom line for Visual Studio.NET is that Microsoft has worked out that the Internet is where widely distributed applications are happening, and it's no good delivering a development environment aimed at the desktop and having a second rate product for the Web.

Make no mistake, you can still use Visual Studio to develop superb desktop applications, and I purely love some of the goodies they have included, like being able to set transparency of objects on the fly - you want a screen that gently shimmers into view, or a form that you can see through to the information below, it's easy - lots of goodies like that. The development environment is just wonderful. It makes writing and testing code a snap.

But this is Visual Studio built from the ground up around the Internet in general and the Web in particular. The biggest change is that instead of having HTML and code mixed up together on the same page, a real nightmare to maintain, you now have two pages, one to lay out your web page exactly as you want, another for the "code-behind" where you set down the code. At its most basic, you have a button on one page, and the code that handles the button click on another that the user never sees.

And remember how I have my JavaScript Bible up for sale? The controls and the code in .NET work for any browser, and you don't have to mix Javascript client-side and VBscript server-side any more. The framework handles all that for you and different code gets sent to different browsers automatically. A *huge* saving in development time and the elimination of a maintenance nightmare.

In fact, it doesn't matter what language you use to write your code in. Visual Basic, C++, Java, Microsoft's new C# (which is best described as C++ without pointers), or any of the dozens of old and new languages being made available for the environment.

There's stacks more to say about Visual Studio.NET, but I don't have the space here. Buy it and try it - with the rebate it's inexpensive, or you can try the whole product for 60 days by asking Microsoft for an eval version - it's on their website somewhere - not too hard to find.

My opinion of VS.NET is that it's a bold new advance on the previous version, one that is the result of a lot of consultation with real-life developers, and one that is designed for Web development. Serious web development.

It also lowers the bar for developing sophisticated web pages. Makes web coding an order of magnitude easier. There is going to be a huge cottage industry of website design based around this product, and a smart cookie can turn out good websites for small business and community groups at the rate of one a night and a few on weekends. Seriously, you can make back the price of this product in a few hours, it's that good. Let others struggle with Perl and cross-browser issues and maintenance tangles - this is the fast track right here.


Rebate GOTCHA!   May 2, 2002
23 out of 24 found this review helpful

I like the new IDE. BIG point to remember, in order to get the MS rebate for the upgrade edition, you NEED the box top with the UPC symbol of the qualifying software. Luckily I kept mine from VB6!


Not as good as eclipse   August 29, 2002
Anthony G. Laforge (Austin, TX USA)
17 out of 43 found this review helpful

Up until a year ago I think I would have been praising Microsoft for yet another great product...then IBM release eclipse 2.0, and everything changed. Eclipse has an amazingly solid interface, great version control integration, and incredible ease of use. And... oh by the way, tons of features you don't find in VS.NET, like code formatting/ beautifying (no I'm not talking about changing the font), easy file manipulations, *real* pre-compile time code checking, and did I mention it was free and can be run in both Windows and Linux? Ahh... so you say I'm not a java programmer, eclipse is useless to me....WRONG!!! A Project is already underway to add .NET support, specifically C#.

Head to head eclipse is hands down the clear winner, but hey I suggest you draw your own opinions. Download eclipse and see for yourself.


The Best Studio ensemble but not perfect.   May 2, 2002
JOHN (CA United States)
16 out of 16 found this review helpful

This latest release by Microsoft is the best studio package money can buy. But, there are some shortcomings, Where is the VC++ .Net Forms designer? No doubt a ploy by Microsquash to gently twist the arms of VC++ programmers to at least consider using their proprietary new language Visual C#(Sharp) as their new primary language.(VC# .Net has a Forms Designer)
Visual Basic .Net is now a joy to use relative to previous versions with the many new powerful code features.(ADO.NET is here to stay, ready or not, painful at first, but like Hell Week in football, you get used to it.)
Visual C# seems interesting, a shotgun-marriage of VB and VC++(Good Lord!)
Still waiting for my free copy of MS JAVA# .Net to arrive.(A coupon comes in the box)
The IDE is the best ever made by any software manufacturer. SUPERB IDE!
Multitude of new features in IDE that make programming life easier.

The Dynamic Help feature(used with code editor and forms designer is very handy)

If you are still using Visual Studio 6 I highly recommend the purchase of Visual Studio .Net Pro.


What a pain to install   April 9, 2002
Wood (Brooklyn, NY USA)
9 out of 15 found this review helpful

After 2 days I finally got a working if limited install of this program that did not crash when launching. Leave it to Microsoft to create a product that does not work with certain DVDs and CD-ROMs. Their response is to xcopy the cds to your hard drive. (Hope you got 2G of space) Still did not fully work.Of course it could be the disks themselves are corrupt. Guess I still got a few more days of work ahead of me. Before you buy check the newsgroups to make sure you got a compatable drive, pioneer dvds are a known problem.