What's On Tap for 'Whidbey'?
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Now that Microsoft has got its "Everett" release of Visual Studio .Net out the door, what's next for its integrated developer-tool suite? "Whidbey" is the code name for the release of Visual Studio that's expected to ship in 2004. Microsoft — and sources close to the company — have offered a few hints where it's going with the next major upgrade to the suite. Whidbey will be joined at the hip with "Yukon," the next version of SQL Server, Microsoft execs have acknowledged. While Yukon feasibly could ship without Whidbey, or Whidbey without Yukon, Microsoft's plan is to roll the two out in tandem, the way it rolled out Visual Studio .Net 2003 alongside Windows Server 2003. Read About the Design Philosophy Behind "Yukon" Check Out eWeek's Review of "Everett" Whidbey is slated to get an overhaul on the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and community fronts. Sources say the Visual Studio .Net team has been tinkering quietly with ways to make its help system more community-oriented. Whidbey is expected to include new methods for developers to access both local and online help provided by both Microsoft developer-tool team members and knowledgeable community members. Some are referring to this as an "integrated community experience" interface. Microsoft also is expected to add new templates to Visual Studio in the Whidbey timeframe that will make the rapid application development (RAD) Visual Studio suite even "RADder." The new templates, code-named "Whitehorse," are expected to provide guidance to those developing and orchestrating XML Web services, business processes and applications. According to sources, Microsoft also is working to add code for testing these services and applications to the Whitehorse template code. Read Early Info on "Whitehorse" Here Microsoft also is revving the languages that comprise the Whidbey Visual Studio suite. One of the languages slated for some major changes is Microsoft's C# Java alternative. Microsoft is planning to add academic and industry-specific language extensions to C#, according to a white paper published on the Microsoft Web site, including support for generics, iterators, anonymous methods, and partial types. Microsoft explains these four features this way:
Microsoft tool rivals aren't standing still while Microsoft continues to evolve its suite. At Sun Microsystems' JavaOne conference next month, Sun is expected to offer additional details on how it plans to take on Microsoft with Visual Basic by introducing low-end Java tools. |
