Having a new logo, Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 made it’s debut yesterday with performance improvements and better stability, setting the stage for the RTM release on March 22, 2010. F# is integrated with Rx, while Azure Tools are in the works.
Released a day in advanced for MSDN users, VS 2010 Beta 2 is available now for all. A quick list of features and enhancements include:
- More stability compared to Beta 1
- Performance improvements, especially the WPF GUI
- Highly improved WPF text rendering
- Project templates and debugging for SharePoint
- Windows Azure Tools templates
- Drag-and-Drop bindings for Silverlight and WPF
- All VS editions contain TFS; small installations can use TFS Basic which runs even on developer’s machine
- .NET Framework’s size has been shrunk by 81% when using Client Profile
- .NET includes DLR with support for more languages
- Backward compatibility with .NET 3.5 through side by side installations
- Simplified line of editions
The number of editions came down to 3 compared to VS 2008’ 9 editions, resembling Window’s set of editions. They are: Professional, Premium and Ultimate. The prices are:
- Ultimate with MSDN - $11,924 New or $3,841 Renewal
- Premium with MSDN - $5,469 New or $2,299 Renewal
- Professional with MSDN Professional - $1,199 New or $799 Renewal
- Professional (retail) - $799
2010 Ultimate Offer will give customers with a MSDN Premium subscription the option to upgrade to the next level edition of VS 2010. MSDN subscribers have more benefits including computing power in the Windows Azure cloud as shown in the figure below:
So, MSDN Premium and BizSpark subscribers get 750 hours per month in the cloud, while VS Ultimate, VS Premium and VS Professional have 250, 100 and respectively 50 hours/month in the cloud, more than enough to get started with Windows Azure.
VS 2010 Beta 2 comes with a new version of F#. A CTP add-on for VS 2008 is also available. .NET 4 contains the Reactive Framework consisting in two interfaces: IObservable<T> and IObserver<T>. These interface have been integrated into F#. Don Syme’s post contains more details on this F# release.
Microsoft is getting ready a set of Windows Azure Tools for VS 2010 Beta 2, and they are to be available in November. The release “adds a new UI over the service definition and configuration files, adds new template options for creating roles, improves debugging integration with the development fabric and integrates with a number of new platform features and improvements.”
This Beta release is normally the last one before the RTM scheduled for March 22, 2010. RTM could be delayed based on customer feedback, if serious problems are discovered, problems that need more time than it is available to be fixed.
Resources: Microsoft’s Press Release on VS 2010 Beta 2, Don Syme’s blog post on F# and VS 2010.