It's closing in on that time of year again, but Microsoft have jumped the gun and have handed developers a massive pile of goodies to play with.
Their Connect(); //2016 event kicked off today with the usual keynotes and while there were some surprises around Microsoft joining the Linux Foundation, and Google joining the Microsoft .NET Foundation, it's the new toys I am more interested in.
So here are the big things:
-
Visual Studio 2017 RC
Any .NET Developer knows Visual Studio, and the latest candidate brings a brand-new installation experience, new Docker integration, the latest .NET Core tooling and so much more smart stuff that you'll still be discovering new bells and whistles when Visual Studio 2019 lands! -
Visual Studio for Mac (Preview)
Xamarin Studio, under a new name, with some cool new tricks including .NET Core support. Or as Microsoft put it...
A mobile-first, cloud-first IDE. Made for the Mac.
- Visual Studio Mobile Center
Touted as mission control for your mobile app management, Microsoft state:
Bring your apps written in any language to Visual Studio Mobile Center’s cloud and lifecycle services and you’ll get faster release cycles, higher-quality apps, and the time and data to focus on what users want.
- .NET Core tooling with MSBuild support
Yes the project.json file that we have in .NET Core today is great and I really wish it was staying, but sadly it isn't; so the latest preview of the .NET Core tooling (preview 3 to be precise) is the first release that lets us get to try out the new csproj improvements and MSBuild support. Migration to the new project format is simple usingdotnet migrateand you can then open the new project file in Visual Studio 2017 RC, or Visual Studio for Mac (Preview). The MSBuild/csproj support is considered "alpha" so use at your own risk.
Time to get downloading!