Visual Studio 2008 release by end November, Sync Framework announced

TechEd, Barcelona Microsoft has announced that Visual Studio 2008 will be available to MSDN subscribers "by the end of November 2007". I'm a little disappointed not to find the RTM build here at Tech-Ed, but that's not long to wait.

Along with Visual Studio we get .NET Framework 3.5. The package includes LINQ (Language Integrated Query), and full designer support at last for WPF (Windows Presentation Framework) as well as WF (Workflow Foundation) and WCF (Windows Communication Foundation). It has taken a year since the first release of Vista to provide proper developer support for the frameworks that shipped with it.

S Somasegar, corporate vice president of the developer division, also announced the first preview of the Microsoft Sync Framework. Mary Jo Foley has a good summary. Interesting, given that building online/offline synch into applications can be challenging. You can download it here. The description says it is "a comprehensive synchronization platform".

He also has a few stats. He said:

• Over one million professional developers use Visual Studio 2005
• 17 million downloads of Visual Studio Express
• 25 per cent of Visual Studio developers are using Visual Studio Team System

This last statistic is higher than I expected. I spoke recently to a Team System early adopter, who told me that while he was not exactly disappointed with it, nevertheless he had come across significant problems. His biggest issue was that you can't manage work items across team projects, making it difficult for developers involved in several different projects. He also found the integration with Office poor, and the lack of a full Web UI frustrating. Nothing more than you would expect for a version one release.

Finally, Somasegar mentioned a new release of Popfly Explorer with "an easy way to add Silverlight gadgets built in Popfly to web pages," to quote from the brief press overview.

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A freelance journalist since 1992, Tim Anderson specialises in programming and internet development topics. He has columns in Personal Computer World and IT Week, and also contributes regularly to The Register. He writes from time to time for other periodicals including Developer Network Journal Online, and Hardcopy.