Visual Studio 2008 to go gold as soon as Monday

Microsoft officials said earlier this month that they would release to manufacturing the final Visual Studio (VS) 2008 code before the end of November. Looks like they're on target.

According to a post on the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) Subscriptions blog, MSDN subscribers will be able to get the final bits "early next week." Once released, they will be available via the MSDN Top Subscriber Downloads page. Sources say Microsoft will announce availability on Monday, November 19.

Update on November 19: Yep, VS 2008 has RTM'd. (Thanks to WinBeta for the link.)

Microsoft is expected to release the final .Net Framework 3.5 bits simultaneously with the VS 2008 ones.

Visual Studio 2008, code-named "Orcas," is the first version of Microsoft's Visual Studio development suite that is optimized for Windows Vista application development. The new release also marks the debut of LINQ, Language Integrated Query, which is a set of extensions to the .Net Framework that allows developers to query consistently a variety of data sources.

Even though the final code will be available soon, Microsoft's official launch event for Visual Studio 2008 is still set for February 27, 2008.