F# Advent: F# 4.0 function first constructor

Hi there!
I know it’s been long promised before, that I will discuss constructor as function in F# 4.0 in my previous blog entry of What’s new in F# 4.0.
This blog is part of F# blog Advent in December that contains blogs of F# developer communities, thanks to Sergey Tihan to organize this advent series! Full list of blog series
Now we can simply treat any object constructor as a simple function call that always returns an object typed as the same as the name of the function, and this is the same as constructor in C#/VB.

Quick background of OOP support in F#

F# is functional programming language, and we all know that it is basically what F# really shines as programming language. But F# has very good support for OOP, including the nature of inheritance, encapsulation, polymorphism and mutability. Every class defined in F# also supports method calls that parts of the object’s behaviors, including object’s constructors.
Since F# first release, OOP support is improving, including nice supports for upcast and downcast of a type. But this type casting support is nicely documented in F# documentation at Microsoft’s new documentation repository: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/articles/fsharp/language-reference/casting-and-conversions

Function constructor in action

Now let’s visit F# tutorial sample on Visual Studio:

And we now have a Tutorial.fsx file opened. Go to the Classes section in the comments, and we will see the sample code to create class with default constructor that has 2 parameters:

We can see that the code instantiate Vector2D by calling the constructor directly instead of using new keyword!
In previous release of F#, we have to use new to call constructor. For example:
let vector3 = new Vector2D(1.5, 4.5)
Now we can simply call the constructor without new, as demonstrated in the tutorial sample:
let vector1 = Vector2D(3.0, 4.0)
Yes, it’s more succinct, cleaner, and one thing is also nice: it’s more functional in style. This new function constructor is typed to return the same object as the function name, therefore there’s no constructor that will return void or unit because this is not allowed.
WARNING: The name resolution is important, we should not have implemented another function with the same name as the name of the class. Otherwise compile error will occur.
Unfortunately, current documentation of F# object expression does not cover this function constructor yet: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/articles/fsharp/language-reference/object-expressions
I invite all of you, my blog reader, to contribute to F# docs repo. Enjoy contributing and happy coding!

Current state of Visual Studio releases [March 2016]

Hi there, my blog readers!

I’m back to regular updates of giving what happened in Visual Studio world from February 2016 to the end of March 2016. It’s a bit late (31st March) as there are exciting news!

There were interesting news, including the update of Visual Studio, .NET Core, ASP.NET Core, the shocking nice update: Microsoft acquired Xamarin!

These are the updates from February 2016 to the end of March 2016:

1. Microsoft acquired Xamarin! – February 25, it was discussed by Scott Gu in his blog entry, also in Xamarin’s blog, as well as others from Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, etc.
2. Visual Studio TFS 2015 Update 2 goes RTM!– March 30, 2016, – complete TFS 2015 Update 2 description is available at the official VS TFS 2015 Update 2
3. Visual Studio 2015 Update 2 goes RTM! – March 30, 2016, – complete Update 2 description is available at the official Visual Studio release note page
4. Microsoft joins Eclipse Foundation, as described in Brian Harry’s blog and in Visual Studio’s blog.
5. Visual Studio 2005’s end of support announcement – March 11, 2016 – The official end of date is April 12th, 2016 but it is announced on this Visual Studio blog

These updates are cool! Especially on Xamarin’s acquisition and VS 2015 and TFS 2015 Update 2 releases.

Microsoft acquired Xamarin

Yes, Microsoft acquired Xamarin! Now Miguel de Icaza joins Microsoft as part of Microsoft developers. All of the Xamarin employees are part of Microsoft as well.

For more details, please read Microsoft official announcement in Scott Gu’s blog entry.

We are going to have Microsoft Xamarin Studio? Or new name? This is interesting!

Visual Studio 2015 Update 2 RTM

Yes, we have Update 2 RTM! To me, the most noteworthy notes in this Update 2 release are:

1. Git indicator of committed changes that not yet pushed and uncommitted local changes
2. Git submodule update is now available when submodule has to be refreshed for update
3. Add support for these Git commands: reset –-hard, cherry picking, and staging)
4. Typescript is updated to TypeScript 1.8

And many more! Again, check the complete list of new features and bug fixes at: https://www.visualstudio.com/news/vs2015-update2-vs

For #1, we can have Git indicator on the status bar below:

This is small new features but it’s very useful to see the number of changes and number of committed changes that is not yet pushed. It might be unnoticed, but this indicator can be clicked. Clicking the “pencil” icon will display the changes page if there’s committed changes. Clicking the “up arrow” will go to the Synchronization page.

These are the new supported Git commands in the Update 2:

The nice thing is the Cherry-Pick support, and I’m going to use this Cherry-Pick often!

Visual Studio TFS 2015 Update 2 RTM

This update is also very good update for TFS 2015 (on premise version of Visual Studio Team Services).

The notable features are:

1. Creating and deleting team project is now available from the web interface
2. Work items now can be deleted!
3. Team Foundation Server extensions!
4. Create new branch from bugs in Kanban board (new linking capabilities)

For more complete list of new features, changes, and bug fixes, please visit: https://www.visualstudio.com/news/tfs2015-update2-vs

Next blog entry will discuss the implications of Xamarin after acquired by Microsoft!

Current state of Visual Studio releases [January 2016]

Hi my dear blog readers!

The “Current state of Visual Studio releases” series has been quite in active for about 4 months. I know this is supposed to be updated regularly, but unfortunately there are very rare notable news and updates of Visual Studio and Microsoft’s Developer Division.

Also the series got a bit delayed, because I was focusing on previous Lambda Jakarta coding dojo meetup.

From the beginning of December 2015 to 20th January 2016, these are the updates of Visual Studio:

1. Support period ending for .NET 4, 4.5, and 4.5.1
2. The release of Visual Studio 2015 Update 1 (on November 30, 2015)
3. Node.js Tools for Visual Studio version 1.1 released (on November 17, 2015)
4. First preview of Visual Studio Java Language Service for Android

Now, let’s discuss those three! Except for the last one (number #4), I haven’t got the chance to fully use it.

This is still in preview, for more information please see the blog: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/vcblog/2015/11/06/java-debugging-and-language-support-in-visual-studio-for-android/

Now, let’s start!

Support ending for .NET 4, 4.5 and 4.5.1

The original announcement is here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dotnet/archive/2014/08/07/moving-to-the-net-framework-4-5-2.aspx

This simply translate as “Microsoft will not provide supports anymore for .NET 4.0, 4.5, and 4.5.1 and this include hotfixes for these releases”. The next message is simply please update to at least .NET 4.5.2 or even better, 4.6.

The follow up of the original announcement is here: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dotnet/2015/12/09/support-ending-for-the-net-framework-4-4-5-and-4-5-1/

The interesting fact is from the link above is:

Applications targeting a .NET Framework version that is no longer supported will not need to retarget or recompile to a newer version as they can be run on a later .NET Framework version. The .NET Framework 4.5.2 and higher versions have higher compatibility, provided by a newer feature called “quirking”. Quirking is a pattern in which a .NET Framework version maintains the semantics of earlier versions, while including updated implementations. The .NET runtime knows which of these semantics or quirks to execute depending on the .NET Framework version that the application targets. More information on migrating an application can be found on the Migration Guide to the .NET Framework MSDN article.

Put it simply, it matches with my translation above. I believe this will bring more burden on the enterprise IT operations especially those that focusing on premises (instead of cloud such as Azure), because .NET 4.5 is still quite new for them.

It’s quite new for them, because .NET 4.5 was released in 2012 (with the same release date of Visual Studio 2012, and also Windows 8/Windows Server 2012). Fast forward to now, end of year of 2015, only less than 3 years but they have to immediately upgrade. Less than three years of platform update is inevitable,

This end of support is not just for us, developers. For those develop .NET applications that runs on Azure, the upgrades on Azure are necessary. Fortunately Microsoft has provided updated images (mostly in form of Virtual Machines) that more focusing on .NET 4.5.2 and above (including .NET 4.6).

Visual Studio 2015 Update 1 RTM

This release although it might seems a service release, it really contains many new things.

These are new features brought by Update 1:

• Visual C#
• Debugging enhancements (Visual C++ and IDE aspect)
• Tools for Apache Cordova (now Update 5)
• Tools for Universal Windows Apps version 1.2

And many more! For complete list of release notes, visit: https://www.visualstudio.com/news/vs2015-update1-vs

Let’s visit some of the new features:

Visual C# new features

This Update 1 brings you C# Interactive Window and C# scripting API. This C# interactive window is very much like F# interactive window, except it has these two quite subtle differences: it has intellisense and type coloring!

If you are wondering what to do at the C# interactive window, just type “#help” like above.

And now we have C# scripting API. Unfortunately, the documentation of C# scripting API is still incomplete and I could not test it further.

One thing is still missing: VB.NET Interactive window! Unfortunately, we won’t see VB.NET interactive in Visual Studio 2015 at all, even after Update 1.

 

Debugging and diagnostic enhancements

In VIsual C++, now we have support for Edit and Continue for /BigObj. This looks like minor feature but this is very important, because it enables debugging with Edit and Continue support for WIndows Store applications that’s written in C++.

In Visual C# and Visual Basic, now we have “Go to implementations” feature when you activate context menu in the source code window. This item will display the implementation of the object you want to observe, not just having knowing “Go to definitions” that was available since VS 2002 (also called Visual Studio .NET 2002).

Yup, it’s a minor addition but it’s useful!

There’s also enhancements on Code Analysis, but unfortunately it’s not for Visual Studio Express Edition.

Tools for Apache Cordova (a.k.a. TACO) Update 5

The notable feature is support for iOS 9 and experimental support for Android M, a.k.a. “Marshmallow”. Now TACO is maturing well. The overall experience of using this release is much better than previous releases, including better performance especially responsiveness of the emulators when running Cordova applications.

Beginning with this Update 5, the Node.js will only focus on Node.js version 5. So please update your Node.js installation as well to focus on Node.js 5 and above!

For more information on this TACO update 5, visit: http://taco.visualstudio.com/en-us/docs/release-update-5/

Node.js tools for Visual Studio version 1.1

This is a very useful tool, and sometimes I use this tool to debug certain Node.js package or applications. Having Node.js support in Visual Studio is a very nice feature although this tool is available as Visual Studio extension:

For more information, please visit the official repo of Node.js for Visual Studio: https://github.com/Microsoft/nodejstools

Yes, it’s OPEN SOURCE!

After you download from the Visual Studio Extension and Updates (or you can get from VS Gallery), simply install the MSI:

The installation for this release, 1.1.1 will take about 5-7 minutes on VS 2015 Update 1.

One thing you must remember: it needs Node.js at least version 0.91 but it’s recommended to install Node.js 5.

Now, Visual Studio 2015 will have these new project templates: (under TypeScript)

Now, enjoy and I welcome discussions!

What’s new in F# 4.0 in Visual Studio 2015

Hi my blog readers!
Today I’m going to share information about F# in Visual Studio 2015.
When Visual Studio 2015 was first released, F# was also released as F# 4.0. Put it simply, Visual Studio 2015 has F# 4.0 in it, or you can view it other way: F# 4.0 was released at the same time as Visual Studio 2015 released.
A complete list of F# 4.0 new features, enhancements and bug fixes are available in F# Github repository in the form of markdown page: https://github.com/Microsoft/visualfsharp/blob/fsharp4/CHANGELOG.md
There many nice features and bug fixes! But for me, based on the previous link, the nice parts of new features of F# 4.0 are:

1. Constructors can be treated as first class functions
2. Support for high dimensional arrays is now in sync with .NET 32 dimensions array. Previously F# only supported up to 4 dimensional arrays.
3. Synchronize of “API parity” for List, Array, and Sequence, including additional new APIs: chunkBySize, contains, except, findBack, findInstanceBack, indexed, item, mapFold, mapFoldBack, sortByDescending, sortDescending, splitInto, tryFindBack, tryFindIndexBack, tryHead, tryItem, tryLast
4. Slicing support for List
5. Supports for VS debugger for debugging F# script

Important notes:

1. Slicing support for List is quite comfortable, but please be careful that this List is F# List, not the original .NET’s System.Collections.Generic.List. F# List is implemented as linked-list, this is why the original F# List has no inherent support for index before F# 4.0. Actually and it’s natural to have an index, because slicing support requires to have an index.
2. High dimensional arrays are not available in all of the F# APIs. There’s no API for manipulating arrays that has dimensions above 4 dimensions.

For more information about the general enhancements, see this blog post: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/fsharpteam/archive/2014/11/12/announcing-a-preview-of-f-4-0-and-the-visual-f-tools-in-vs-2015.aspx
Tomorrow I’ll discuss the new features above with some samples!

I’m going to give presentation on TechDays 2015 Indonesia

Care to know about Git and Github support coming inside Visual Studio 2015?

Catch me at Microsoft Indonesia’s TechDays 2015 event!

Register now at http://aka.ms/techdaysid

See you there!

Current state of Visual Studio releases [July 2015]

Hi my blog readers! I know, this blog installment should be out at before 24th July, but there were some exciting news to tell!

This is the fourth installment of Visual Studio releases update. In this installment, the updates are not so much like previous (on May 2015) but it’s very worthy to know!

These are the updates:

• Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2015 RC2 release
• Visual Studio 2013 Update 5 release
• Visual Studio 2015 release

Now let’s talk about those releases!

Visual Studio 2015 RTM

Yes, Visual Studio 2015 has been released on 20th Jluy! I have described the what’s new on Visual Studio 2015 RC on the previous Visual Studio updates, now the RTM add this nice additions:

• New support for high resolution icon for VS extensibility. This means VSX icon will scale nicely on high resolution monitors. There’s also Nuget package of Visual Studio extensibility, so VSX updates are less dependent on the standalone installer of VS SDK (like VS SDK before VS 2015)
• Support for TypeScript 1.5. This also means support for features in ECMA 6, the current standard of Javascript.
• Improved user account management of Visual Studio Online account and Git, also provide switchable profiles. Sweet!
• Improved user account management for Azure AD, including supports for multiple Azure AD
• Diagnostic tool that supports debugging of LLDB, GDB that usually used on GNU compilers. Now this addition requires some deep dive explanation, I’ll try to explain this on separate blog post after this
• Bing powered compiler help. Honestly, I haven’t tried this yet but I’ll try to tell my experience on this later
• … and many more!

More detailed description is available at: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2015/07/20/visual-studio-2015-and-visual-studio-2013-update-5-released.aspx and also specifically at: https://www.visualstudio.com/news/vs2015-vs

Also there are videos to watch at the launch of Visual Studio 2015: https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Visual-Studio/Visual-Studio-2015-Final-Release-Event

I encourage you to check those videos!

Visual Studio 2013 Update 5

Not much is new on this release, but these are the most notable additions:

• support for Team Project renaming, including sync with local workspace. Sweet!
• Additional query token of “current iteration”
• Cloud based load testing. Sweet!! This feature is very worthy to have, as it’s easier to have load test in cloud instead of playing around with on premises load test.

For more information on VS 2013 Update 5, visit VS 2013 Update 5 release notes: https://www.visualstudio.com/news/vs2013-update5-vs

To download VS 2013 Update 5, go here: https://www.visualstudio.com/downloads/download-visual-studio-vs

 

Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2015 RC2

Finally, Team Foundation Server 2015 (a.k.a. TFS 2015) is not just feature complete, but it’s nearing RTM release!

From Brian Harry blog post:

Our plan had been that the Release Candidate we shipped at the end of April would be our last public pre-release and that mid-July would be our RTM date.  About a week ago, I made the decision to change the plan.  Instead, we are shipping a “Release Candidate 2” now and will RTM as soon as we are ready after that.

This means TFS 2015 is not released at the same time of Visual Studio 2015 and it’ll be definitely released after Visual Studio 2015 RTM.

One thing for sure is that the support for team project rename is available on this TFS 2015 RC2, and it works the same as in VS 2013 Update 5.

To download TFS 2015 RC2, visit: https://www.visualstudio.com/downloads/download-visual-studio-vs

But by the time TFS 2015 RTM released, the download will be replaced by RTM version of TFS 2015.

Current state of Visual Studio releases [May 2015]

Hi my blog readers! I know, this blog installment should be out regularly at 19th or 20th May, but there are many things to be discussed and lots of excitements to be shared for you before I publish this. So please be with me

This is the third installment of Visual Studio releases update. In this installment, again, there are many exciting news about Visual Studio!

Here they are:

1. The release of Visual Studio 2015 Release Candidate (also called Visual Studio 2015 RC) on 29th April 2015
2. The release of Visual Studio 2015 SDK Release Candidate (also called Visual Studio 2015 SDK RC) on 29th April 2015
3. The release of Visual Studio Code (preview)
4. The release of Visual Studio 2013 Update 5 Release Candidate on 28th April 2015
5. Github Extension for Visual Studio 2015 release (it’s also available as an option when installing Visual Studio 2015 RC)

Now here are the breakdown of those above. A friendly warning: this is a loooong list, a little bit TLDR.

Visual Studio 2015 Release Candidate

As usual, if Microsoft releases a software that has RC mark, the RTM release is near: within 3-4 months. Yes, it’s at faster cadence as indicated by my previous blog almost 2 years ago: http://fsharpmonologue.blogspot.com/2013/07/current-state-and-product-lifecycle-of.html

NOTE: This meaning of RC thing may be only apply at Microsoft world and this is common at least in the last 14 years (since Windows XP). In detail, the release of RC means the feature is fixed. This simply means that there will be no new features for the next release for the RTM. The next release of RC can be RC2 or the release, usually (officially) named as RTM, or Release-To-Market.

Even at the release of VS 2010, this trend of faster cadence has stabilized. Yes, there was broken rule of semantic versioning between VS 2012 and 2013, and it was quite annoying. The new version of Visual Studio 2013 should be bringing more features instead of just minor updates and fixes.

Fortunately, Visual Studio 2015 has many good news:

1. It’s not just a new release, it has tons of new features compared to Visual Studio 2013
2. VS 2015 has Roslyn (VB and C# compiler as a service) built in. And it’s also open source!
3. Because of the nature of opening Roslyn, the communities are actively influencing the development of Roslyn and therefore the proposals of features are rapidly introduced and many of them are very good!
4. The Visual Studio 2015 family has different products, but the price will be lower than the previous Visual Studio 2013 with MSDN subscription offers. This also includes the next release of Visual Studio 2013 Community Edition, the Visual Studio 2015 RC Community Edition. There will be NO Visual Studio Premium with MSDN subscription for Visual Studio 2015, as the VS 2015 Premium is named as Visual Studio 2015 Professional. The original VS 2015 Professional offering is now Community Edition.
5. CodeLens is available on Visual Studio 2015 Professional. Originally it was available only at Visual Studio 2013 Ultimate Edition since Visual Studio 2013 Ultimate Edition Update 2.
6. The original Ultimate edition is now available named as Enterprise edition in VS 2015

The official announcement is available at Visual Studio blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2015/04/29/build-2015-news-visual-studio-code-visual-studio-2015-rc-team-foundation-server-2015-rc-visual-studio-2013-update-5.aspx

You can download Visual Studio 2015 RC (Community, Professional, Enterprise) at: https://www.visualstudio.com/downloads/visual-studio-2015-downloads-vs

Visual Studio 2015 SDK Release Candidate

This SDK is released at the same time of Visual Studio 2015 Release Candidate. It is also contains the implementation of Roslyn integrated into the way of Visual Studio extension development.

You can also try the samples (included in the SDK) and experiment cool new features of Roslyn, such as building AST of the code (C# and VB only) and analyze your code.

One of the nice features of Visual Studio 2015 is the Light Bulb suggestions when you code using built in managed languages (VB, C#, F#, managed C++) and native C++. Therefore you can also build your own custom Light Bulb suggestions using Visual Studio 2015 SDK. For more information about custom Light Bulb development, visit: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn903708(v=vs.140).aspx

The official announcement of VS 2015 SDK RC is available at the same Visual Studio blog entry above: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2015/04/29/build-2015-news-visual-studio-code-visual-studio-2015-rc-team-foundation-server-2015-rc-visual-studio-2013-update-5.aspx

Visual Studio 2015 SDK RC can be downloaded at: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=46850

Visual Studio Code

A new Visual Studio family is here! It’s very light, free, and cross platform!

Now why I emphasize this? There has been a strong image that Visual Studio will never have lightweight editor that runs on OS other than Windows!

What is Visual Studio Code, really?

It is simply a lightweight development editor but with intelligent features partially borrowed from a full big IDEs such as intellisense, code completion, keyword highlights. It’s based on Omnisharp, a lightweight editor that is also open source. The web development editing part is based on Electron, a subpart of Atom which is also open source. Omnisharp itself is an Atom package that provides C# and ASP.NET support.

At the time of this writing; Visual Studio Code isn’t yet reached RTM. The initial version number is version 0.1.0.

This is the official home page of Visual Studio Code: https://code.visualstudio.com/

One more thing, I have mentioned cross platform! Because Visual Studio Code runs not just on Windows, but it can run on Linux Linux 64-bit, and MacOS.

To download the current Visual Studio Code, you can get it at the landing page (home page) above.

Visual Studio 2013 Update 5 Release Candidate

Yes, you got it right: it’s another update for Visual Studio 2013 after Update 4.

Now what does this Update 5 have? Actually, it’s simply Update 4 with numerous bug fixes and a small additional feature, including these notable bug fixes:

• KB 3018885 FIX: You cannot dismiss developer license notifications in Visual Studio 2013 Update 4 (for Visual Studio IDE)
• Capturing depth buffers on version 9.3 hardware is now supported. This enables support for graphics debugging Unity-based applications that run on Windows Phone.

The additional small features are:

• Team Project rename support for Team Foundation Server (on premises). Visual Studio Online also has this feature.
• A new query token for query iteration: @CurrentIteration (it is case sensitive name). This feature is previously available on Visual Studio Online since March 10. See https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/news/2015-mar-10-vso.aspx

NOTE:

This update is the last release of Visual Studio 2013 update, so there will be no next Visual Studio 2013 Update after Update 5.

Github Extension for Visual Studio 2015

There is support for GitHub built in, not just Git repo support since Visual Studio 2013 initial RTM release. This extension is available as an option when installing VS 2015 or as stand alone installation.

Not just GitHub, but initial feature of pull request, merge, diff, sync, graph is also available.

This is the announcement from official Visual Studio blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2015/04/30/announcing-the-github-extension-for-visual-studio.aspx

The picture below is taken from the blog entry:

To download stand alone installation of this GitHub extension, visit: https://visualstudio.github.com/?CR_CC=200627595

Current state of Visual Studio releases [March 2015]

Hi, my blog readers!

This is the second installment of Visual Studio releases update information on March 2015.

For complete series of Visual Studio releases update of my blog, go to: http://fsharpmonologue.blogspot.com/search/label/Visual%20Studio%20release%20state%20update

For March 2015, we have exciting news about Visual Studio! There are:

1. Visual Studio 2015 CTP 6 (February 2015)
2. Team Foundation Server 2015 CTP (February 2015)
3. Tooling SDK of Windows 10 (official name: Visual Studio Tools for Windows 10 Technical Preview2015

This update is a little bit late (it should be on 19th or 20th March), as I was keeping up with the streaming broadcast of dotnetconf 2015.

The dotnetconf 2015 is an online conference for all of .NET update including .NET Core, WPF, ASP.NET, Roslyn, F# and many more!

Didn’t have time to watch? Watch or download offline at: http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/dotnetConf/2015

ENJOY!

Now, here are the updates…

Overview of the updates on March 2015

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Now let’s dive into those three above!

Visual Studio 2015 CTP 6

Visual Studio 2015 is at CTP 6. The CTP marks that this release is not for “go live” or for production environment. I will keep stating (or reminding) this as many of you, blog readers, including my friends are confusing the CTP for production environment.

This CTP 6 contains these notable features and improvements:

• UI debugging tool for XAML
• Single sign in (with integration to other cloud based authentication)
• Code Lens improvement for Git and also with support for C++, Javascript, and SQL script
• Code Maps improvements such as filtering, faster display (faster diagram rendering) performance
• Visual Studio tools for Cordova now supports Android 4.4 and 5.0 (Lollipop)
• Javascript editor improvement: support for // TODO comments, object literal intellisense
• and many more!

For complete list of CTP 6 release notes, visit: https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/news/vs2015-vs

The official blog that described this release is available at:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2015/02/23/visual-studio-2015-ctp-6-and-team-foundation-server-2015-ctp-released.aspx

With the release of CTP 6, it’s expected that Visual Studio 2015 is nearing the release of Release Candidate. This assumption is safe unless there is a notable bug needs to be fixed.

Special notes:

• The UI debugging tool for XAML in CTP 6 only supports WPF. Support for Windows Store app will be available in the final release.

The UI debugging is surely a very useful feature:

Please check up the original blog post of Visual Studio for more detailed explanation: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2015/02/23/visual-studio-2015-ctp-6-and-team-foundation-server-2015-ctp-released.aspx

Well.. I suggest you should download the ISO instead of using web installer to minimize error while installing this CTP, since the download is more than 4GB.

Team Foundation Server 2015 CTP

Team Foundation Server 2015 CTP is the next release after the preview release (the same time at Visual Studio 2015 Preview public release).

There are not so may improvements, but the improvements are mostly worthy to be considered:

• REST API support for TFS (previously only available for online TFS, Visual Studio Online)
• Team build improvements, including preview on MSBuild activity on TFS web portal (when accessing TFS via web) and cross platform builds (YESSS!! not just on Windows, now on Linux, XCode, and Android)
• Assign and invite testers
• and more (although it’s not so numerous)

The assign and invite testers is very helpful. Now you can invite testers, attached with the test suite number to test.

This is the screenshot from VisualStudio.com website (link below):

Those  screenshots are taken from the notable release notes of Team Foundation Server 2015 CTP. The official link is:

https://www.visualstudio.com/news/tfs2015-vs

Personal note on TFS:

Compared to other ALM product such as SVN or even commercial one such as StarTeam, TFS has widen the competitive edge. But compared specifically to IBM Rational UrbanCode coupled with IBM Rational Team Concert, TFS is quite on a par to IBM’s.

Visual Studio Tools for Windows 10 Preview (a.k.a. Tool for Windows 10 Preview)

Before you proceed, please read and notice my friendly reminder below.

If you want to try develop apps in Windows 10 Preview, this tooling is the one that you must install after you install Visual Studio 2015 CTP 6.

Why, because Visual Studio 2015 CTP 6 is the prerequisite of this tool.

Yes, the latest Windows 10 Preview on March 2015 is also available to be downloaded! But it is available after you join/register first for the Windows Insider program. Don’t worry, it’s totally free! Just go to this official site: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/preview-faq

If you are done installing, there will be a new template for Windows 10 UAP (Universal App Platform) projects, not just the usual Windows 8/Windows 8.1/Windows 8.1 (phone) Universal Apps.

To bring you quick peek, I copy picture from Microsoft’s Somasegar’s blog on Visual Studio Tools for Windows 10:

Here is the original location of Somasegar’s blog entry: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/somasegar/archive/2015/03/23/visual-studio-tools-for-windows-10-technical-preview.aspx

Now what are you waiting for? Code right now, guys! :)

Current state of Visual Studio releases [January 2015]

Hi my blog readers!

Begin with this date, I will post Visual Studio updates every 2 months: January, March, May, July, and so the next 2 months.

The update from me will always be released on every 19th or 20th bimonthly.

On 19th January 2015, these are the updates of Visual Studio (from the latest in January 2015 goes back to December 2014):

• Visual Studio 2015 CTP 5
• Visual Studio 2013 Update 5 CTP 1

Overview of the updates

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Visual Studio 2015 CTP 5

This is the 5th CTP release of Visual Studio 2015. Reference:

The updates on this release are new features and bug fixes. These are the new features:

1. XAML Language Service
2. Timeline tool (for WPF and Windows Store 8.1 application)
3. Diagnostic tool
4. ASP.NET

There are bug fixes (for bugs reported in earlier version of Visual Studio 2015 CTP/Preview): http://support2.microsoft.com/kb/2967191

For more information about VS 2015 CTP 5, visit this page: http://www.visualstudio.com/news/vs2015-vs

Visual Studio 2013 Update 5 CTP 1

Yes, there will be another update for Visual Studio 2013! Personally, I thought Visual Studio 2013 Update 4 was the last update and I was wrong.

Visual Studio 2013 Update 5 CTP 1 brings only two updates:

1. Technological improvements on debugging for DirectX 9 PS 3 depth support (DirectX 9.0c) on Windows Phones
2. Bug fix on notification hubs

For #2, the bug (and also the fix) is described as:

FIX: You cannot dismiss developer license notifications in Visual Studio 2013 Update 4

Let me elaborate more on this bug. This bug is available since Visual Studio 2013 Update 4. After you successfully install Visual Studio 2013 Update 4 (either standalone update or as included installation of fresh installation of Visual Studio), a notification about acquiring developer license would always appear, even after you dismiss it and open another project.

For full explanation about this bug, here is the original MS KB article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/3018885

For more information about Visual Studio 2013 Update 5 CTP 1, visit this MS KB: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/3021976

See you again in two months