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When will we get a good IDE for .NET?

2003 is out, but when will MS release a .NET IDE that works!  We spend, and I kid you not, 1-2 hours a day messing around with IDE problems, shutting down the IDE because it locks, shutting down or machines, staring at hang ups, strange build errors that magically go away on the next immediate Build, etc...

I am sick of hearing my developers state "I have to do a re-start again" or "I just lost all the controls on my form in the designer" and then spending hours trying to 'fix' what really is not broken.

As an example, we have been in the office since 8am today.  It is not 9:27am and no code has been written as we are trying to get or IDEs up and running cleanly.

 

 

15 Comments

  • I have never ever used the perfect IDE...I don't believe it actually exists.

    All IDEs have their foibles...but when a crash happens do you email Microsoft support or post on to the newsgroups ? Having myself developed 'product' software in the past, I can tell you that no level of testing will catch all bugs - and it is likely that some bugs you encounter will not be known to the group responsible - so if software crashes, my advice is to hit the 'send error report' button or email details of what you were doing and the symptoms to either an appropriate MS monitored newsgroup - or even just put it on your blog, you'll be surprised who reads it!

  • I think a lot of your problems Greg are related to VB.NET. In the past 8 months I've developed a very large C# application but besides the obvious winforms flaws, I haven't run into a lot of issues with VS.NET (only the debugger perhaps once or twice).



    I know you can't switch over easily, however it is a thing to keep in mind. FWIW: the IDE in whidbey is a lot better. But that is of course not what you want to hear because it always seems to be better in the next release...

  • Sorry to hear of the loss of coding time, Greg. I had to close and re-open VS.NET 1.1 this morning because I lost intellisense (and not just because there were errors in my immediate syntax), but I never had any problems whatsoever. Hope you post what the problems were when you get it ironed out.

  • I rarely have any problems (VS.NET 1.1)...though I did lose all the controls on a designer the other day... My advice, G]get more RAM. The IDE some times hangs for a while under low memory conditions, most of the time it isn't really "locked" (if you wait long enough, it will come back). Increasing my RAM (I have a 512 and a 256 on my laptop currently... 1 GB would be even better) solved all the lock problems for me.

  • Greg, didn't you hear yet? All the "fixes" you want are in the next version of Visual Studio!



    You'll just have to wait until then to pay for the privelege of using a more stable (hopefully) IDE and framework.

  • Hmmm.... Knock on wood here... I run the IDE and do VB and only have one bug: some times loading a project over a share is slow.



    Yesterday I had 6 windows service projects open and was hopping all around as I tune up and fix things (it's a multi part engine that runs async)

    all day long and this is normal for me.



    guess I got the good copy of VS.NET ?

  • Hmmmm. I've had very few problems with the IDE (VS.NET 2003/VB.NET mostly). I agree that low memory conditions seem to be a factor - when I was using an underpowered laptop for development, I saw a lot more locks and lost controls than I have seen any more.



    I wonder what is specific to your environment that is causing this. It doesn't seem to be a problem that everyone is battling. Good luck!



    --Avonelle

  • Same here... I develop large Windows Forms applications with VB.NET/C#/C++ using Visual Studio 2K3. I don't have any of the problems you describe... and honestly, I probably should. Only running a 1gig processor and 512meg RAM. The only issue I have is how long it takes to load up a solution with 10+ projects associated within it ;-)

  • I also have not had any issues with VS.NET 2003. I hope you can work everything out and get to work! :-)

  • Hmm, I see to be with you on this. I have to restart my VS at least twice a day. And I have to reboot a lot to fix odd problem with local web services going nutty on me.

  • Hallo,



    This is the line which makes the IDE hang:



    Me.PictureBox1.Image = CType(resources.GetObject("PictureBox1.Image"), System.Drawing.Image)



    Maybe my bmp is too big for this nonsense IDE

    It's 7 KByte big!!!



    Chris

    Vietiane

    People Democratic Republic of Laos



  • Found this thread via Google -- shame to see that so many ppl have not experienced the same wierdnesses you have, Greg.



    We are losing count of the number of voodoo issues in VS.NET 2003 (Enterprise).



    We chronically lose UserControls off forms, and currently have a "ghost" UserControl that is not VISIBLE until you select it from the drop-down object selector above the Properties panel, then magically it appears right where we left it.



    Also, CHANGING SCREEN RESOLUTIONS can often spawn old voodoo issues we thought we'd seen the last of.



    One that finally WENT AWAY ON ITS OWN this morning was an object that magically took a step LEFT by one pixel. We wouldn't have noticed it except ALL THE OTHER CONTROLS took a step RIGHT and got WIDER.



    And regularly, going a Get Latest then running our application has the IDE prompt us to check-out objects. So, for fun, we do a check-out, then see WHAT really changed and it turns out the ORDER OF GENERATED CODE has changed. Even more fun, the order get CHANGED BACK if we do it a second time.



    Its great fun.



    Otherwise I love VS.NET but we too are beginning to lose HOURS in a day chasing phantom bugs.



    p.s.: most of our machines are currently 256MB, and FINALLY we are upgrading them all to 512MB shortly.

  • Thanks for the support and a good laugh.

  • I have to agree, there are some fairly obvious flaws that just don't make sense. For example, on my machine I develop in C# when I use the Add Existing item option or any option that opens the Visual Studio file or folder selection dialog, it takes 8 seconds for the user interface to switch from one folder to another. In the windows explorer file dialog or any other dialog for that matter, (including ones I have written myself) the response is less than 2/10ths of a second.



    You would think that Sun Microsystems wrote the whole Visual Studio interface in some down level version of Java.

  • I use the new dell inspiron with a screen resolution of 1920 on 1200 whichis really nice, but I have lot's of problems with dotNet programs. Apparently forms are getting layed out completely different and fields starting to overlap and hide other fields.



    If someone has encountered the same problems and has a solution for it. you can always contact me... (bert.fabri@visit-bvba.be)



    In the VS designer, I had lot's of troubles with inhereted forms. After each build they completely rescale. Finally I found out that rebuilding the base form resolved this weird problem. (it took me some days)



    I have been a java developper for a long time and have always appreciated the forte environment (after some getting used to the swing layout stuff)

    My initial enthousiasm on the new VS has been drastically cooled.



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