Eyeing Visual Studio 2005, SQL Server 2005
To speed development, Visual Studio now has additional code refactoring capabilities, including IntelliSense code snippets and intelligent helpers. Hundreds of components and classes inside the .Net framework have been added to the palette. The code snippet library includes more than 400 reusable sections of code for common operations that can be transferred into the code editor.
With a right click of a mouse the IDE is configured, enabling developers to quickly navigate a hierarchical structure of software categories and find routines that they want to add into their code. Since file I/O operations, networking tasks, printing and resource management are all common code structures used frequently by most applications, the code snippet library reduces the amount of repeatable code that developers have to write themselves. Developers also can expand the code library and add their own routines.
For developers that like to see end-to-end examples before delving into coding, Visual Studio 2005 includes a large selection of starter kits, which are reference applications to help developers find and learn .Net features and its major supported languages. Visual Studio 2005 arrives with starter kits that show how to build Windows, Web and enterprise applications, including best practices.
The My Namespace object is a Visual Basic feature now used in other .Net languages to help developers encapsulate objects such as file I/O, security and printing. This object tracks all application resources and controls, to expose all objects for a given application.
With Visual Studio 2005, Microsoft also has improved how developers work with the plumbing inside Web applications, including items such as theme templates that can be applied to Web sites to maintain a certain look and feel. The vendor also has improved the personalization and data-caching functions associated with Web applications.
To start, programmers do not have to write personalization and security code to distinguish between users anymore. The IDE arrives with all the code to track user roles and correct data delivery methods. Also, the .Net framework can automatically manage data caching from any data source, making data persistence invisible to developers. By turning cache on in Visual Studio, the .Net framework tracks changes made to the cache. When multiple users access the same information on a Web application, developers can see dramatic improvements on the performance of their applications without having to hard-code optimization routines.
Visual Studio's new Debugger Visualizer is one of the most useful features for developers working with text, HTML and XML, as it can examine string properties and formats in objects while programs execute in debug mode.
Visual Studio 2005 integrates with SQL Server 2005 so developers can write stored procedures in Visual Basic, then upload the code into a database server. This means developers don't have to jump into TSQL, since this new language functionality provides native translation of stored procedures.
.Net's CLR is also included in SQL Server 2005. SQL Server controls CLR's memory allocation and processor cycles to optimize code running on the same server. This feature allows SQL Server to optimize deadlocks by killing threads off based on priority, so memory contention is eliminated.
SQL Server 2005 supports application failover and provides database mirroring. It also supports native data encryption, allowing database administrators to encrypt/decrypt data or perform key management within SQL Server's environment. DBAs also can use the Windows encrypted file system on the database files to provide greater encryption. For Web services, SQL Server 2005 supports the WS Security standard.