VS2008 vs VS2005

  • Thread starter Thread starter Iouri
  • Start date Start date
I

Iouri

Hi everybody,
We are currently using VS2003 and now we are in the porcess of upgrading to
the next Visual Studio version. Does somebody have a real life experience
with VS2008?
My boss wants to go with VS2005 and I am trying to convince to buy VS2008.
Can somebody provide links to compare 2 products in terms of how stable they
are. I do not need VS2008 new features, I need to prove to my management
that VS2008 is a stable product.

TIA
 
My boss wants to go with VS2005 and I am trying to convince to buy VS2008.
Can somebody provide links to compare 2 products in terms of how stable
they are. I do not need VS2008 new features, I need to prove to my
management that VS2008 is a stable product.

TIA
Click to expand...
Tell him that VS2008 is VS2005 with the bugs removed.
 
Hi everybody,
We are currently using VS2003 and now we are in the porcess of upgrading to
the next Visual Studio version. Does somebody have a real life experience
with VS2008?
My boss wants to go with VS2005 and I am trying to convince to buy VS2008.
Can somebody provide links to compare 2 products in terms of how stable they
are. I do not need VS2008 new features, I need to prove to my management
that VS2008 is a stable product.

TIA
Click to expand...

My primary argument would be why buy a product that will be outdated
the day you buy it?, you probably wouldn't save much money and you
would lose out on features and functionality.

Besides a GREAT feature of VS2008 is they added intellisense to VB
just like C# has in 2005. That is my biggest annoyance with VB was
the lack of variable intellisense that I got to the point of putting
me. in front of everything to get the intellisense and avoid
misspellings.
 
Thank you for the reply. But right now my concern is not new features, but
stability of the product comparing to vs2005
 
My primary argument would be why buy a product that will be outdated
the day you buy it?, you probably wouldn't save much money and you
would lose out on features and functionality.
Click to expand...

Because VS.NET 2005 is a proven platform - and it's not outdated, only that
it doesn't have the fancy tools VS.NET 2008 provides.
Besides a GREAT feature of VS2008 is they added intellisense to VB
just like C# has in 2005. That is my biggest annoyance with VB was
the lack of variable intellisense that I got to the point of putting
me. in front of everything to get the intellisense and avoid
misspellings.
Click to expand...

Nevertheless, I would push for VS.NET 2008, because it is more or less
VS.NET 2005 + enhancements and bug fixes :-)
 
Iouri said:
Hi everybody,
We are currently using VS2003 and now we are in the porcess of upgrading
to the next Visual Studio version. Does somebody have a real life
experience with VS2008?
My boss wants to go with VS2005 and I am trying to convince to buy VS2008.
Can somebody provide links to compare 2 products in terms of how stable
they are. I do not need VS2008 new features, I need to prove to my
management that VS2008 is a stable product.

TIA
Click to expand...
I am a senior developer and have used VS2008 commercially since its initial
MSDN release (after some sound testing at home with the beta). The product
is far more stable than VS2005 and , of course, has a number of nice new
features and improvements.

Since using VS2008 I have not had a single hang (which occurred at some time
nearly every day with VS2005). I have been working on a rewrite of a very
large VB6 application for the company I work for. Obviously, porting from
VB6 to the .Net platform presents many problems so a rewrite is the only
real solution.

You may have issues porting code from VS2003 but that will occur with VS2005
as well as VS2008. Porting code from VS2005 to VS2008 did not present any
issues for me.
 
To really make your case, you've got to understand a few things about the
various .NET Framework versions.

Historically, Microsoft has introduced a new Visual Studio product to
accompany a new Framework version, they did that with Framework versions
1.0 - 2.0 as follows:

Framework v 1.0 --- VS .NET 2002
Framework v 1.1 --- VS .NET 2003
Framework v 2.0 --- VS .NET 2005

Obviously, the 2.0 Framework represented major modifications to the core
software (new compilers a new CLR, etc) and so, of course there were bugs.
There have since been service packs for both the 2.0 Framework and VS 2005
to address these issues.

Then, Microsoft did something a little different, they introduced some new
..NET technologies, but instead of creating a *whole* new Framework with new
compilers, a new CLR, etc., they made a new Framework version that just had
what was necessary to run the new features (Windows Communication
Foundation, Windows Workflow, Windows Presentation Foundation) and called
that Framework version 3.0. Instead of making a new version of Visual
Studio to do along with that, Microsoft created a plethora of add-in's to VS
2005 that would make it work with the new 3.0 stuff.

Now, the latest version of the Framework is 3.5 (adds additional support for
LINQ and Ajax on top of WF, WPF, and WCF). For this new release (now that
most of the bugs have been worked out, Microsoft has released Visual Studio
2008, which works against the 3.5 Framework (there are no add-in's and
service packs for this - - yet).

Essentially, VS 2008 gives you access to all of the new Framework stuff AND
is really VS 2005 with all the bugs worked out. It is considered a very
stable product and has the advantage of making all the latest .NET
technologies rolled up into it.

I know you said that you were not interested in the new stuff, but for
essentially the same price, why wouldn't you want the product that is more
stable, has less updates and patches to keep up with and gives you more
features. That's the argument to make to you boss.

Goo luck.
 
Tell him that VS2008 is VS2005 with the bugs removed.

And some new ones introduced......

Just remember that no version of any program is ever bug free. I saw
quite a few things in the beta 2 release that really worried me,
enough to recommend to my current employer to not upgrade to vs2008
or .NET 3.5 until need dictates (we are currently using vs2005). I
have not tried any release version of 2008 except the Express edition
of VB, which seemed incredible stable and much better than the beta
was, so my earlier comments may be incorrect.

To the OP:

Since you are using vs2003 currently, I would recommend you upgrade to
2008. Since you do not appear to upgrade very often, you really should
try to get the newest you can. Not to mention that fact that once your
boss reads some of the new features he/she will probably want you to
start using them, and will not want to pay for another upgrade.

Thanks,

Seth Rowe
 
Harry said:
I am a senior developer and have used VS2008 commercially since its
initial MSDN release (after some sound testing at home with the beta). The
product is far more stable than VS2005 and , of course, has a number of
nice new features and improvements.

Since using VS2008 I have not had a single hang (which occurred at some
time nearly every day with VS2005). I have been working on a rewrite of a
very large VB6 application for the company I work for. Obviously, porting
from VB6 to the .Net platform presents many problems so a rewrite is the
only real solution.

You may have issues porting code from VS2003 but that will occur with
VS2005 as well as VS2008. Porting code from VS2005 to VS2008 did not
present any issues for me.
Click to expand...
I fully agree with your assessment. I've been working with VS 2008 since
Beta 1, through RTM, and have had no real issues with C++, C# or VB
solutions. VS 2008 performs better, is more flexible in terms of .NET
version support, and adds significant new features.
 
We immediately upgraded to VS2008 when it came out. Suckers for punishment?
Extremely daring? Too trusting of Microsoft? Or did we just want one of the
features really, really badly?

Okay, the answer is (d). We did it so we could deploy with ClickOnce and
actually have it work for customers running Firefox, Opera, and Safari. (And
it does -- brilliantly.)

The good We have a handful of developers, and none of us have had any
trouble with VS2008.

RobinS.
GoldMail, Inc.
---------------------------
 
Stabikity of 2008 vs 2005? thats a joke.. 2005 was horrible in stability
compared to 2008... we worked in every version from VS.NET 2002 all the way
up to now 2008 and 2008 is by far the most stable and 2005 was the least
stable... 2005 we had hangs and crashes like crazy it felt like... going to
2008 was like whoa I can breath again...
 
Stabikity of 2008 vs 2005? thats a joke.. 2005 was horrible in stability
compared to 2008... we worked in every version from VS.NET 2002 all the way
up to now 2008 and 2008 is by far the most stable and 2005 was the least
stable... 2005 we had hangs and crashes like crazy it felt like... going to
2008 was like whoa I can breath again...
Click to expand...

Interesting... My experience was that 2002 was the least stable, and
that each following version got better. Seriously, I can't remember the
last time I had 2005 hang or crash on me.... Of course, I do C#
development 99% of the time, so maybe it's that background compile
thing that VB.NET does?
 
Will 2008 open a 2003 project? I haven't tried yet but I know 2005 will
open it and 'upgrade' it to 2005.
 
Whenever you open a previous VS .NET project in a new version of VS .NET, VS
..NET will initiate an upgrade wizarard to migrate the project to the newer
format.
 
So you are saying for sure that 2008 will open a 2003 program and
upgrade it? I was just curious as a 2003 project is 2 versions old to 2008.
 
cj said:
So you are saying for sure that 2008 will open a 2003 program and
upgrade it? I was just curious as a 2003 project is 2 versions old
to 2008.
Click to expand...

Would be a disaster if you're lost just because of skipping one version.
:)


Armin
 
Might be to the original poster who is using 2003 and wants to know if
to skip 2005 and just buy 2008. Personally unless I knew for sure 2008
would open and upgrade 2003 projects I'd suggest he buy one copy of 2005
to have on hand and then buy 2008 for all the developers.
 
Yes, that is what I'm saying. But, be advised that the VS .NET upgrade
wizard doesn't actually change any of your code, it changes the project and
solution files to use the new MSBuild engine.

After the wizard is complete, a conversion report will be generated with
information about coding issues that may need to be addressed.

-Scott
 
That's good to know. I haven't done it myself yet. I think I've already
opened and recompiled all my 2003 projects in 2005. It did whatever it
was going to do and I didn't have to touch the code. I noticed it did
change one thing I was using a variable named "continue" that it now
calls "[continue]". I also notice it leaves the Windows Generated code
section in there like it was in 2003. If I'd created a new project in
2005 that section would not be in there.
 
Back
Top