On November 19th Microsoft released Visual Studio 2008 to Manufacturing. Visual Studio contains over 250 new features and has major enhancements in every Visual Studio edition including the Express for hobbyist and Visual Studio Team System for shops with a more controlled architect/build/test/release environment. Developers of all skill levels now have a secure, reliable and consistent solution for building applications for the Web, Windows Platform, and the Office System. With the integration of Silverlight into Visual Studio, developers can build rich cross-platform web applications including HD quality video.

Visual Studio 2008 is available for download for MSDN Subscribers at http://msdn.microsoft.com. The VS 2008 Training Kit is downloadable from http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=7602397.

Released in parallel with VS 2008, the .NET Framework 3.5 builds on top of previous versions of the .NET Framework and brings improvements in areas such as the Windows Workflow Foundation (WF), Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and Windows CardSpace. Other improvements include: 

  • Deep integration of LINQ and data awareness. This lets you write code written in LINQ-enabled languages to filter, enumerate, and create projections of several types of SQL data, collections, XML, and DataSets by using the same syntax.
  • ASP.NET AJAX lets you create efficient, interactive, personalized cross-platform Web applications.
  • New Web protocol support for building WCF services including AJAX, JSON, REST, POX, RSS, ATOM, and several new WS-* standards.
  • Full support for WF, WCF, and WPF, including the new workflow-enabled services technology.

The .NET 3.5 Framework is available for download from http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=7755937