Microsoft christens next tool suite release 'Visual Studio 2010'
Microsoft is naming the next release of its Visual Studio integrated development platform "Visual Studio 2010" -- but that doesn't necessarily mean it won't ship until 2010.
Microsoft went public with the new name on September 29. Based on previous Microsoft naming convention, Visual Studio 2010 could ship either in the latter half of 2009 or the first part of 2010. Company officials wouldn't provide a ship-date target or a date as to when testers should expect a first test build of the new suite and the accompanying .Net Framework 4.0.
In related news, Microsoft announced over the weekend that it is adding support for the jQuery JavaScript library to its tool suite (though company officials did not specify whether it would add jQuery support to Visual Studio 2010). It sounds as if Microsoft is planning to deliver jQuery support first with the next versions of Microsoft ASP.net MVC.
With the next release of VIsual Studio, Microsoft is trying a new tact; it is doling out a list of new features over the course of several weeks, rather than all at once. Even though a Microsoft developer recently leaked a list of some of the features in the 2010 release (which is codenamed "Visual Studio 10"), Microsoft officials declined to address them. Instead, the only feature set that execs would discuss at all this week is application lifecycle management, which Microsoft will deliver via the Visual Studio Team System 2010 ("Rosario") SKU.
Visual Studio Team System 2010 will support the Object Management Group's Unified Modeling Language (UML) and Domain Specific Language (DSL). The modeling capabilities in VSTS 2010 are part of Microsoft's "Oslo" modeling platform.
Visual Studio 2010 is expected to be smaller in size, more modular, to include a new Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) text editor and to add more functionality aimed at line-of-business developers, according to the feature list blogged by Microsoft employee Jeffrey Schlimmer.
Schlimmer didn't mention jQuery support. But once Visual Studio adds support for the jQuery code snippets, documentation and other features, Microsoft will be one more of a growing pool of jQuery backers, others of which include Google, IBM and Intel.