Visual Studio is about to receive an upgrade. The newest version of Microsoft's beloved IDE will include enhanced support for each of the programming languages already supported by Visual Studio to one degree or another. Visual Basic is getting some great new support from Visual Studio 11. One new feature is Async. The new Async feature is designed to improve the ease with which programmers can develop asynchronous code. If the improvement works the way Microsoft hopes it will, writing asynchronous code will be nearly as unsophisticated as using synchronous code already can be. In Visual Basic the Async method requires the new Async modifier and the Await operator. Using the Async method replaces work usually done by the developer with work done by the compiler. The product of this reassignment of tasks is that writing code is simpler and maintains a more familiar structure usually associated with synchronous code.
Improvements to the Visual Studio support for C# also include the new Async feature. Writing code in C# using Async is largely the same as using Async in Visual Basic. As with Visual Basic, you use an Async modifier and an Await operator. Using these new keywords eliminates the need for defining call-backs when writing asynchronous code. When you define callbacks (sometimes known as continuations) you run the risk of writing overly complicated, confusing code. Some routine operations, such as exception handling, often become unnecessarily challenging. Async eliminates continuations and forces the compiler to do the hard work rather than the programmer.
As part of the upgrade Visual Studio will offer programmers additional support for code written using C++. The Standard Template Library support is going to be expanded to include support for many new headers. Another key improvement over Visual Studio 2010 will be some smaller containers. For example std::vector will be 12 bytes, down from the current size of 16. Also, std::map will see its size decrease from 16 bytes to a mere eight.
Support for F# in Visual Studio 11 is going to receive some time-saving and productivity increasing enhancements for programmers who need succinct and expressive information rich programming. New type providers make accessing different data sources more straightforward. For example, OData services (or Open Data) can be used for transmitting data through a network or over the internet. The F# core library includes some new units of measure types for the International System of Units. Previously this already existed in the F# PowerPack but was not included in the core library.
This examination only scratches the surface of the improvements to Visual Studio, its compatibility with various programming languages and its functionality with related Microsoft platforms. Currently the developer preview, upon which this information is based, is available at Microsoft's website for developers interested in testing some of the aforementioned improvements (among others) to Visual Studio since the release of Visual Studio 2010 and should not be used in production scenarios.
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