5 ms·

I can feel your frustration and you've expressed more vocally than I would have but I definitely share some of the sentiments. My biggest beef is tying Visual

I can feel your frustration and you've expressed more vocally than I would have but I definitely share some of the sentiments. My biggest beef is tying Visual Studio releases to the .NET framework and other components. Why should I need Visual Studio 2013/2012 to use Entity Framework 6 or ASP.NET MVC 5, etc. I can't even figure out what's supported and what's not with older Studio releases (such as 2010) without spending time on Google. I don't really see any reason why Visual Studio 2010 shouldn't support .NET framework 4.5.1, MVC5, Entity Framework 6.0 etc.. I used to believe there was some validity to tying a .NET framework version to Visual Studio but I've come to realize its just a money grab and a way to keep pushing out new Studio releases. I understand there is some point where you need to move forward. Anyway, at some point you realize enough is enough. I'm not there yet but I am definitely tempted to start heavily investing in other development stacks.

Encosia 13y ago
If you don't care about the tooling, you should be able to use most any version of VS with most any version of MVC by deleting the MVC-specific project type GUID in your .csproj/.vbproj file. Not sure about EF, but if you don't need the designer (e.g. using code first), I think it should work in previous versions of VS too.
edwinnathaniel 13y ago
Come to Java first if you're concerned jumping directly to (dynamic languages) Python/Ruby/PHP/NodeJS :). Eclipse is free and it is as good as or even better than VS.NET. Updating Eclipse is hassle free. Using Maven is a good choice for IDE-independent (any Java IDE with Maven supports/plugins will be able to open any project based on Maven consistently and easily).
- unclebucknasty 13y ago
  Check out NetBeans too. Also free, and has always felt "lighter" than Eclipse to me.
philbarr 13y ago
What other kinds of dev stacks are you looking at? I use C# in VS with Add-In-Express for creating Office plugins. It's a total pain in the ass most of the time and I would love to try something else. I'm a long time Java/Eclipse guy that's been doing C# for a few years now. Whilst Eclipse is FAR from perfect, it really does beat VS hands down. Like - Resharper is basically a must. And running unit tests in Eclipse feels pretty much instant compared to the VS "I'm going to rebuild everything really slowly before I run the tests" biz.
- Locke1689 13y ago
  If you'd like to jot down some of the things in Eclipse that you wish were in VS, I'd love to hear it. Email's in my profile.
- avenger123 13y ago
  I still believe for enterprise development Microsoft is very viable so I don't see myself necessarily moving away from the platform. At some level, you can't avoid having to upgrade to the latest and greatest Visual Studio but in some ways I am trying to move away from all Microsoft offerings. The biggest is on the database side. I think PostgreSQL running on a linux machine as a database is a very good solution. I would say at this point, this would be the biggest change. I also prefer to use http://www.llblgen.com/ http://www.llblgen.com/ for an ORM instead of Entity Framework. I will tend to pick an open source equivalent for certain functionality instead of relying on Microsoft's version. For example, nunit for unit testing, log4net for logging, Quartz.NET for job scheduling, etc.
Locke1689 13y ago
I don't really see any reason why Visual Studio 2010 shouldn't support .NET framework 4.5.1 Hmmm?
- avenger123 13y ago
  I don't know why the question mark. Here is Microsoft's own guidance on what is supported: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/vstudio/hh487282.aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/vstudio/hh487282.aspx When you go from having a Visual Studio release every two years to every year or year and a half, and each version brings an increment to the .NET runtime, the issue of not supporting older run times directly (without any hacks) in older versions becomes much more important. I understand and appreciate that to some extent it may be a technical issue and support needs to stop at a certain point but a lot of it seems to be business driven.
  - Locke1689 13y ago
    I was asking what you mean by "support." What functionality would you like in VS 2010 which is not present?

Encosia 13y ago

If you don't care about the tooling, you should be able to use most any version of VS with most any version of MVC by deleting the MVC-specific project type GUID in your .csproj/.vbproj file. Not sure about EF, but if you don't need the designer (e.g. using code first), I think it should work in previous versions of VS too.

edwinnathaniel 13y ago

Come to Java first if you're concerned jumping directly to (dynamic languages) Python/Ruby/PHP/NodeJS :). Eclipse is free and it is as good as or even better than VS.NET. Updating Eclipse is hassle free. Using Maven is a good choice for IDE-independent (any Java IDE with Maven supports/plugins will be able to open any project based on Maven consistently and easily).

unclebucknasty 13y ago
Check out NetBeans too. Also free, and has always felt "lighter" than Eclipse to me.

philbarr 13y ago

What other kinds of dev stacks are you looking at? I use C# in VS with Add-In-Express for creating Office plugins. It's a total pain in the ass most of the time and I would love to try something else. I'm a long time Java/Eclipse guy that's been doing C# for a few years now. Whilst Eclipse is FAR from perfect, it really does beat VS hands down. Like - Resharper is basically a must. And running unit tests in Eclipse feels pretty much instant compared to the VS "I'm going to rebuild everything really slowly before I run the tests" biz.

Locke1689 13y ago
If you'd like to jot down some of the things in Eclipse that you wish were in VS, I'd love to hear it. Email's in my profile.
avenger123 13y ago
I still believe for enterprise development Microsoft is very viable so I don't see myself necessarily moving away from the platform. At some level, you can't avoid having to upgrade to the latest and greatest Visual Studio but in some ways I am trying to move away from all Microsoft offerings. The biggest is on the database side. I think PostgreSQL running on a linux machine as a database is a very good solution. I would say at this point, this would be the biggest change. I also prefer to use http://www.llblgen.com/ http://www.llblgen.com/ for an ORM instead of Entity Framework. I will tend to pick an open source equivalent for certain functionality instead of relying on Microsoft's version. For example, nunit for unit testing, log4net for logging, Quartz.NET for job scheduling, etc.

Locke1689 13y ago

I don't really see any reason why Visual Studio 2010 shouldn't support .NET framework 4.5.1 Hmmm?

avenger123 13y ago
I don't know why the question mark. Here is Microsoft's own guidance on what is supported: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/vstudio/hh487282.aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/vstudio/hh487282.aspx When you go from having a Visual Studio release every two years to every year or year and a half, and each version brings an increment to the .NET runtime, the issue of not supporting older run times directly (without any hacks) in older versions becomes much more important. I understand and appreciate that to some extent it may be a technical issue and support needs to stop at a certain point but a lot of it seems to be business driven.
- Locke1689 13y ago
  I was asking what you mean by "support." What functionality would you like in VS 2010 which is not present?