So I finally got the March CTP installed and ready to take a look at what's new in Orcas, the next level of Visual Studio. The installation was a bit of a struggle and did nothing to improve my opinion of the intuitiveness of Virtual PC (2004 or 2007 versions) - and when I tell you that I started from a Satisfaction Score of around Minus 20 you'll get the idea. But that's by the by.
Firing up the Orcas VS (which is the full Team Suite version), and selecting Create Project, first thing you'll notice is the additional icons for WPF Templates - more on this later. I also spotted that the top of the list (well, the first template in the panel, anyway) is the Class Library template. In VS 2005, Windows Forms takes pride of place and at first I thought that this was a subtle nudge to us all to think more OOP and classes before we begin to go down what might be our usual first selection of WinForm.
A few minutes thought produced the realisation that of course it was nothing as deep and meaningful as that:
... it was of course simply rearranged to be in alphabetical order. Doh!
Notice also that the left hand pane includes links to enable you to create Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and Windows Workflow projects.(plain WF, not WWF - just think of all those "extinct lumbering mammoth jokes we've missed out on!).
I've had an initial tinker with a WPF Application and had a look at XAML. I think that's going to be a very interesting and hopefully highly productive avenue to walk down. One thing I have found while I've been looking for resources on the topic is that most of the articles and books seem to use C# as the language of choice in the code behind. Haven't hit many VB ones yet, so I hope that there are authors out there planning to redress that particular balance a bit.
As it happens, it's not a major problem at this early stage as most of the samples are very basic code and so easily mentally translated into VB form. But long term, as the topics become more complex and sophisticated, I can see some possible teeth gnashing in the VB community.
Taking a quick peek at the layout inside Visual Studio for a Windows Forms project, much seems unchanged. And that's not a complaint. Whether there will be more bells and whistles later remains to be seen; I expect there will be some tweaks to signify the upgrade. But for now it's probable that the major effort so far has been put in on glitzy new features like LINQ, VB 9 and C# 3.0 language enhancements, XAML and those Framework 3.0 tools.
One thing missing from my copy is access to the Project Properties Tab Page:
I don't know whether this is a problem only with my individual installation or if it affects all CTPs, but given that it took me more than four days to get what I've got now I'm not about to start reinstalling Orcas now just to find the answer to that question.
One very useful new feature for backwards compatibility is that within Orcas you can program against some of the earlier versions of the Framework:
(always assuming you've sussed that the little icon at the top right hand corner opens up this opportunity for you!)
As I understand it, the IDE will filter and display the available features according to the version of the Framework you have chosen. I haven't tried this yet, but it's something I will be having a play with soon and will blog the results of my experiments with this and all the interesting new stuff that comes with Orcas.