New Features in Visual Studio 2010

Visual Studio 2010 is approaching rapidly from the launch and with it a new set of features will also appear.

One that I think is very important is the Architectural Tools that come with this new version, and elements like:

• Dependency Graph
• Filters using Direct Graph Markup Language (DGML) on top of the generated graph.
• Views as:
• Dependency Matrix
• Forced Direct Layout
• Top to Bottom Layout

• Sequence Diagrams
• Available on the Code Editor

• Unified Modeling Language (UML)
• Usage of UML to define the project

• Use Cases (UC)
• Creation of Use Cases
• Integration with TFS, since we can select an element in the use case and build, link or View the associated Work Items.

• Layer Designer and Layer Validation
• Possibility do build the Architecture of the solution and associate some validation elements that will always be enforced during the development process.

   To know more about this subject read this S.Somasegar post.

Another very important features are the Debugging and Profiling.

• Debugging
• Built in Debugger for MPI programs. Now with the new VS2010 we can select a cluster head node, how many cores you want, and hit F5 to debug your MPI program.
• SOA Debugging
• Up until now, debugging Cluster SOA was limited to basic WCF/.Net style debugging with no cluster integration.
• In Visual Studio 2010, an add-in for Cluster SOA enables the SOA Settings tab, allowing you to choose a head node, debug nodes and services, deploy runtime libraries and clean up automatically.

• Profiling
• VS Profiler can offer insight into performance issues
• Shows a comparison report across multiple runs or builds so you can easily see the effect of your changes.

   To know more about this subject read this S. Somasegar post.