De-emphasizing C#
Some folks at the WeProgram.Net meeting last night pointed out this interesting link at infoWorld: http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/05/28/22FEvs2005_1.html
A notable excerpt:
Microsoft is putting Visual C++ 2005 back at the top of the food chain. When Microsoft released VS .Net, it assumed that C++ developers would jump to C# en masse. Unmanaged — compiled to machine instructions — code was deemed primitive, dangerous, and exploitable. VS .Net derailed Visual C++ to encourage C++ developers to evolve into more civilized and enlightened C# beings.
New efforts on behalf of Visual C++ 2005 suggest that Microsoft has backed off the C# hard-sell.
And:
The best feature of VS Team Foundation may be its completely rewritten SCCS (source code control system). This replaces the weak Visual SourceSafe, which provided only basic
source-code control to small groups of developers. Microsoft estimates that VS Team Foundation will scale to handle as many as 500 developers per group.
Food for thought. I've heard from other sources, too, that C# will not be as emphasized as it has been. This bums me out, a bit, as I took to C# because of my familiarity with Java and it seemed very natural. I know a lot of companies that consider C# their premium development language and I wonder what all this means for those shops? I'm not sure I buy into the infoWorld's analysis on it. Is Microsoft jerking us around on C#, or is this misguided infoWorld-speak?
As for getting rid of SourceSafe, it's long overdue. What I've seen of the Team Services for VS.Net 2005 is very slick as it integrates code coverage and unit testing into the VS tool, not to mention task management and other niceties.
Happy .Netting!