   VS2010 beta impressions
  Was just wondering if anyone has tried out the new Visual Studio 2010 beta, and if so, what were your thoughts on it.  I've been tinkering with it a bit, and am liking some things, and am disappointed by other things.So to start things off....Positives: Finally, fully detachable code windows.  Us multi-monitor people have been dying for this for ages [at least I have].  Everything is fully detachable now, and the environment can now fit into or take up whatever space you care to give it.  Additionally, the .NET stuff gets a lot of perks with .NET v4.0, including the long-over-due System.Collections.Concurrent namespace, and some other tidbits for multithreaded programming.  A lot of this stuff seems like it isn't exactly a final version, and the docs mention that some things will be removed/moved around, but still it is good to see a step in this direction.  It now also features comparably sophisticated refactoring beside vs2008.  Also, it seems to compile anything that vs2008 will compile, without modification, and hasn't complained on even one of my projects thus far.Oh, and it's pretty, and that means plenty when you have to stare at it for hours.On the negatives:  It's sluggish on machines that don't have a lot of muscle.  I've got an older laptop that runs vs2008 pretty smooth, and 2005 very quickly, but 2010 is really lagging.  Even just regular typing into a code window lags behind up to a dozen or so keystrokes at times.  Newer hardware won't see this.  It will hopefully change in the actual release, but it certainly doesn't have the snap that the older versions had.And for the C++ people, it appears intellisense is still terrible.  Ask it to find you the declaration of Engine::Initialize, and it will throw at you every occurrence of the word 'Initialize' in your whole project.  The code definition window still shows strange things at times, and it doesn't quite keep track of a lot of stuff that it really should.  This was one of those big-fish that was promised to all the C++ programmers, and [at least the beta] really doesn't make any noticeable strides beyond vs2008.  .NET intellisense is still awesome though, but there's a big disparity.  Just an empty workspace with a quick "main(){return 0;}" project loaded sits on a fat 125mb of ram.So what have you experienced, and what do you think of the new toy?  Are you happy? Annoyed?Honestly, if I can get .NET 4.0 running in 2008, I don't think I'm going to make the jump on my not-top-of-the-line machines unless they really lift the C++ assistance out of the mud come release time.  It is just too sluggish on anything that isn't a beast of a computer.   
Quote:Original post by DrigovasOh, and it's pretty, and that means plenty when you have to stare at it for hours.Which is why it bothers me that it's a WPF app, given that WPF has notoriously horrible text rendering. Microsoft are apparently fixing this in WPF 4.0, so I guess we can cross our fingers.Other than that, I'm naturally excited by the snazzy new C# features - especially the introduction of long-overdue features that VB programmers have had for years such as optional or named parameters.   ;  I'm happy Microsoft finally implemented multi-monitor support, but I find it somewhat awkward to use. Sure you can drag code windows to your second monitor, but I haven't really found a way to create tabs on your second monitor so if you switch between a lot of files it's hard to use (if someone know how to create a tabbed window on your second monitor please tell me). I found it complained about a couple of Boost libraries when trying to compile, but none that I cared about, but perhaps that was because I just checked out the trunk (1.39 doesn't seem to support VS10).I find the new UI to be great visually, but I'm somewhat surprised by the sluggishness of it. A well-designed WPF application shouldn't really have 1s lag when pressing a standard button. I'm hopeful performance will improve as Microsoft generally produce great apps and it really shouldn't be so hard to move background processing into the background. There is really no excuse for me waiting 3-4 secs when pressing add new file on a quad-core with 4GB memory.As for IntelliSense I definitely feel that it has improved and perhaps this will be the first release where we won't need VisualAssist, however it also seems to suffer from the problem of bringing background processing to the foreground. Sometimes the system becomes completely unresponsive due to IntelliSense parsing a couple of hundred files. Again parsing is such an easy problem that I would expect it to go on silently. I don't need to be informed that IntelliSense is traversing the DirectX include files; just do it when you don't think it will annoy me. Also the addition of IntelliSense errors to the error list seems weird and I can't really see the benefit. I would much rather have proper online code checking and analysis.Overall I'm happy with it. It's a much bigger improvement than 05->08, but I don't feel it lives up to the hype on the IDE-side (the improvements in C# and .NET are however great).Unfortunately I haven't really had time to play with stuff like the profiler, testing and refactoring yet, but I hope to in the future.   ;Quote:Original post by benryvesQuote:Original post by DrigovasOh, and it's pretty, and that means plenty when you have to stare at it for hours.Which is why it bothers me that it's a WPF app, given that WPF has notoriously horrible text rendering. Microsoft are apparently fixing this in WPF 4.0, so I guess we can cross our fingers.If so, the fix doesn't seem to be in the beta.  A quick stab at trying to find the "don't fuck up the fonts goddamnit" option turned up nothing.  I couldn't even get the IDE to change the font, although I easily found where I was supposed to.  I've heard about this fix too, but I'm being cautiously skeptical -- while it sounds like they're trying to actually fix it right this time (instead of trying to bandaid the amputation of pixel awareness like they did in WPF3 with that lock-to-grid junk), I'm wary that they may -- how you say?  Fuck it up.There's a small laundry list of C++0x items implemented -- but not enough to make it actually feel like C++0x.  There's a snazzy new WPF interface... which ends up being slow -- and painful to look at thanks to the aforementioned font issues.I ended up uninstalling before I could even bother testing out dynamic.  Sadly, C++0x proper sounds like it will have to wait until VS2012(?).  The rest -- well, here's hoping, but I wouldn't be terribly surprised if I didn't upgrade from 2k8, except for maybe the compiler if possible.(And I haven't been dying for multi-monitor support -- I just stretch the window out over all of them)   ;  According to Rico Mariani, text rendering fixes didn't make it to Beta 1. They should appear in Beta 2.C# 4.0 is pretty boring so far: dynamic keyword and implicit pass-by-reference? Gee thanks, more COM-interop goodness - I thought we already had VB.Net for that? Default parameters? Should have been in the language since day 1, it's far too late now. A very limited form of co/contra-variance? Okey, interesting - now, where are the fixes for generics?It seems to me that they are trying to align C# and VB.Net features. Why, Microsoft, why?At least F# is freaking awesome. Its IDE integration could use some work and the Ocaml syntax is just a little more arcane than I'd like, but it's a beautiful language. Bonus points if they release the final compiler for Mono.I haven't actually used the new .Net features yet, but the only concurrent namespace looks even remotely interesting (and you could already do this stuff using libraries).Mono is where the truly exciting developments are taking place right now: Mono.Simd, support for co-threading, suspending / resuming the runtime state - this is stuff that can actually make in impact in game programming. No wonder, either: these features were requested or implemented by the folks behind Second Life and Unity3d.   ;  I'm quietly excited about this release but that could just be because I was going to get Visual Studio 2008 Professional but decided to hold off until 2010 came out. The Express editions will do me fine until then.I think the new features in C#, while not being earth shattering, are at least of some use and the new stuff in .Net 4 looks genuinely interesting. I haven't actually downloaded the beta so I have no idea what the IDE is like to work with compared to 2008 but from the video demonstrations it looks perfectly fine to me. Maybe a little more fluff than I would have liked but I guess I can use Programmer's Notepad 2 if I want a light weight editor.   ;Quote:Original post by DrigovasAnd for the C++ people, it appears intellisense is still terrible.  Ask it to find you the declaration of Engine::Initialize, and it will throw at you every occurrence of the word 'Initialize' in your whole project.  The code definition window still shows strange things at times, and it doesn't quite keep track of a lot of stuff that it really should.  How did you ask VS to find the declaration? Just curious...;Quote:Original post by FiddlerAccording to Rico Mariani, text rendering fixes didn't make it to Beta 1. They should appear in Beta 2.Good to hear.Quote:C# 4.0 is pretty boring so far: dynamic keyword and implicit pass-by-reference? Gee thanks, more COM-interop goodness - I thought we already had VB.Net for that? Default parameters? Should have been in the language since day 1, it's far too late now. A very limited form of co/contra-variance? Okey, interesting - now, where are the fixes for generics?At least they're getting stuff out faster than C++0x.  And dynamic is more about the DLR (IronRuby/IronPython) than COM.  I'm not going to disparage them for adding VB.Net features to C#.   ;  I briefly tried it, but wasn't impressed enough to bother for too long. I don't really care about the UI, but the lack of considerable improvements in C++ Intellisense is very annoying. We will have to wait for final, but unless they fix Intellisense, I won't be upgrading from 2008. Quote:Original post by MaulingMonkeyAt least they're getting stuff out faster than C++0x. You bet. You can say what you want about Microsoft, but they actually deliver stuff. Compare that to projects driven by 'open' committees ala C++0x or OpenGL3.0...   ;Quote:Original post by benryvesQuote:Original post by DrigovasOh, and it's pretty, and that means plenty when you have to stare at it for hours.Which is why it bothers me that it's a WPF app, given that WPF has notoriously horrible text rendering. Microsoft are apparently fixing this in WPF 4.0, so I guess we can cross our fingers.Other than that, I'm naturally excited by the snazzy new C# features - especially the introduction of long-overdue features that VB programmers have had for years such as optional or named parameters.from the description, it sounds like the issue is that WPF renders fonts "Like a Mac", which I agree, would be awful.   