What's new in Microsoft VS 2008 SP 1

BANGALORE, INDIA: Given the amount of difference in Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Studio 2008 SP1, VS 2008 & .NET SP1 is more like a new product than its predecessor. Besides giving enhanced performance in WPF application plus added designer improvements overall added features makes this release efficient and flexible for development and deployment of applications. Here are features to look out in new release:

SQL Server 2008 Support

As SQL Server 2008 was released after Visual Studio 2008 one of the most important changes in new release is support for SQL Server 2008. This will further help organisations thinking to switch over to SQL Server 2008.

To create data service click on ‘Project>Add New Item’, from list of items select ‘ADO.NET Data Service’. We have named it ‘School.svc’

ADO.NET Entity Framework

Often developers need to understand the database before they can write access codes for it. Now understanding complex database structure that is controlled by administrator becomes a bottleneck in application development cycle. Using Microsoft’s ADO.NET Entity Framework developers can create an entity relationship model of the database (i.e. SQL Server) inside Visual Studio 2008.

This conceptual model is then used by developers to write code against database and that in turn reduces code development time along with lines of code. This is step by Microsoft to increase abstraction making things efficient for developers. Consider this example: when we write code to access data from a database (SQL Server), we often have to write quires containing ‘Joins’, joins can only be used if there is complete understanding of underlying database structure.

One more issue is writing ‘connection strings’ to connect and disconnect from database. Thus developer is spending too much time on database related issues. The real aim of developing application logic is delayed.  ADO.NET Entity Framework along with LINQ tries to address these issues making application development simple and quick.

ADO.NET Data Service

We are moving away from application that are tightly coupled with programming language and operating system towards architecture that allows development of application (on different platforms) to communicate with each other. Now moving on same line VS 2008 SP1 is integrated with ADO.NET Data Service for making data available as service.

To create EDM of the ‘School’ data base click on ‘Project > Add New Item’, from the list select ‘ADO.NET Entity Data Model’ and change name to ‘School.edmx’

Data as service can make data usage more flexible. Here let me explain how data as service can be used; consider a school where attendance is taken using punch cards (based on RFID). Now once students enter school data collected using punch card is fed in database. If the same data is made available to parents using ADO.NET Data Service over web. Parents can easily track their children. This data can also be made available on mobile devices further simplifying on demand data access.

ASP.NET Dynamic Data

This feature simplifies building of data driven application based on a LINQ to SQL or Entity Framework data model. One added feature of ASP.NET Dynamic Data is enhanced functionality of the FormView, DetailsView, GridView, and ListView controls. 

Besides these features other features to look out in this release include: ADO.NET AJAX Browsing history that helps in navigation within AJAX application using forward and back button of browser. ADO.NET script combing feature for improving performance of AJAX application by reducing script download.