.NET Server Core, cross-platform development, Visual Studio 2015 and other announcements of Microsoft Connect ()

Microsoft Connect () conference is held today in New York, where new products and technologies are announced. A preliminary version of Visual Studio 2015 has been released, a special free edition of Visual Studio Community 2013, Visual Studio 2013 update 4, the source code of .NET Server Core is opened, a preliminary version of .NET 2015 is released, and cross-platform development tools based on Apache Cordova are updated in Visual Studio The Android OS emulator has appeared. This is indeed a new stage in the development of Microsoft development tools, and we are happy to talk about the details.


Key news

• Open source server stack. NET Framework , including all the core components of Core Runtime as well as server technologies such as ASP.NET 5. This edition will also be released for Linux and Mac OS X.
• Visual Studio Community 2013 is released - a new free edition of Visual Studio , available for download now. This is a full-fledged product in terms of its functionality approaching the paid edition of Visual Studio 2013 Professional, including allowing to install extensions and add-ons.
• A preliminary edition of Visual Studio 2015 review and .NET 2015 Preview has been released . These products have a lot of new features and opportunities for cross-platform and cloud development, the creation of applications for devices, improvements in productivity.
• Visual Studio 2013 Update 4 is available for download now, and includes a number of improvements and fixes that will appeal to current users of this product.
• Visual Studio Online has received new updates and now users of this service have the opportunity to manage releases using the Visual Studio Online Release Management service and the Visual Studio Cloud Deployment Projects .

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.NET Open Source

The source code for the core Core .NET Framework components was opened today . In the coming months, additional components will be added. All source code is published under the MIT license, along with a special patent permission for free use of .NET for users. Developers can already familiarize themselves with the source code at http://github.com/Microsoft/dotnet .



The project also announced the release of the .NET Core Framework for Linux and Mac OS X operating systems. This will enable many .NET developers to expand their target platforms for developing applications.

Visual Studio Community 2013

Visual Studio Community 2013 is a new free edition that will allow developers to create solutions for a variety of platforms and scenarios, including web, cloud, desktop or mobile devices. This edition is practically no different from the edition of Visual Studio Professional, including allowing you to connect additional extensions that you can download from the Microsoft website . For example, now you can install Visual Studio Tools for Unity , Node.js Tools for Visual Studio , Web Essentials for Visual Studio .
Visual Studio Community 2013 is free for any non-corporate use, including when developing commercial applications.



Developers today can use Visual Studio Community 2013 to develop desktop or mobile applications, create web and cloud solutions using Azure Free Trial with 10 free sites and mobile services. Also, do not forget about Visual Studio Online which allows you to organize the work of the team, up to 5 people for free. You can start today and familiarize yourself with each of these three proposals .

Visual Studio 2015 Preview and .NET 2015 Preview

New editions of Visual Studio and .NET have a number of new features that will allow developers to be even more productive and expand the scenarios of the developed solutions.

Productivity

Editing C # and VB code in Visual Studio 2015 comes to a new level thanks to integration with the “Roslyn” compiler platform. New features of the C # 6 language simplify many routine actions, and the new “light bulbs” suggesting options for improving your code will allow you to quickly make corrections to the necessary sections. Due to the extensibility of these mechanisms, developers will be able to release their code analysis packages based on the Roslyn technology and connect them to Visual Studio.



Visual Studio 2015 also received a number of new improvements in debugging. This includes new breakpoint configuration system, performance tips , debugging, and eval lambda functions in the variable viewer.

Also in Visual Studio 2015 appeared Smart Unit Tests technology, familiar to users of Microsoft Pex. Released from Microsoft Research, this technology allows you to generate unit tests for your code, and all the conditions will be created to bypass the code branching.
For developers of desktop applications based on WPF, there are also updates in the toolkit, including the Visual Studio Diagnostic Tool, the Timeline Tool and the updated Blend editor. You can read these new items in the blog .

Cloud

Visual Studio 2015 is the most cloud-oriented development tool. Integration with Azure and Visual Studio Online allows you to get maximum productivity when creating cloud solutions.
.NET 2015 includes ASP.NET 5, a new composite framework for building web and cloud applications. ASP.NET 5 is a cross-platform technology that supports the ability to run applications of different versions within a single server.
In addition to the server tools, special extensions were also created for popular code editors, for example, Sublime , in which you can use syntax highlighting and automatic prompts in other operating systems:



In Visual Studio 2015, the service manager has also been updated, allowing you to conveniently manage your servers and cloud services, including on behalf of several accounts.
Developers creating solutions based on Office 365 can take advantage of the API set included in Office Developer Tools for Visual Studio .

Cross-platform and mobile development

The Xamarin platform allows developers to create applications for a variety of platforms right in Visual Studio. Our long-term partnership with Xamarin continues, and we are pleased to present new opportunities:

• For MSDN subscribers, there is a discount on Xamarin Business and Enterprise .
• Improved integration between Visual Studio and Xamarin tools, including the ability to install Xamarin from Visual Studio.
• In the future, Xamarin will add support for the Xamarin Starter Edition for users of the Visual Studio Community, opening up the possibilities of cross-platform development on .NET for more developers.

C ++

The C ++ language remains the leader in the development of high-performance applications. For mobile developers, C ++ is a key component for creating gaming applications and high-performance libraries that can run on a wide range of devices.
Together with the release of Visual Studio 2015, developers will get a complete set of tools for cross-platform application development in C ++. These features include integration with the Clang platform, the LLVM optimizer and support for platforms such as Android and iOS. You can edit and debug C ++ code for the three main platforms, Windows, iOS and Android.



Visual Studio 2015 also includes a number of new amenities for C ++ developers, including a new refactoring mode, an improved file search dialog, and an optimized incremental build mode, which significantly speeds up the assembly of large projects. At the same time, the compiler includes some new features for supporting the standards C ++ 11, C ++ 14, and the preliminary revision of the standard C ++ 17.

HTML / JavaScript and Apache Cordova

Mobile applications are increasingly being developed using HTML5 and JavaScript technologies. These are mobile-optimized websites and full-featured mobile applications based on Apache Cordova technology. Visual Studio 2015 includes a full range of tools for creating such applications.
The new release of Visual Studio Tools for Cordova includes support for Windows 8.1 and universal applications, debugging iOS applications directly from Visual Studio, and seamless integration with the TypeScript language.

Android emulator for visual studio

More and more developers are releasing applications for devices of various form factors. At the same time, it is critical to be able to emulate these devices to optimize the development cycle. Visual Studio 2015 has introduced a new component of Visual Studio Emulator for Android , a high-performance x86 emulator that supports the Android platform and that supports accelerometer emulation, location sensors, network status.

Visual Studio 2013 Update 4

In parallel with the development of Visual Studio 2015, the DevDiv team did not forget about the current version - Visual Studio 2013. In a very short period of time, 4 updates were released. Today, a new update is available for download, and it includes a large number of new features, features and bug fixes .

DevOps in Visual Studio Online

Integration between Dev and Ops is an important link in the implementation of a full life cycle of application development and operation. Visual Studio Online, TFS, Azure allow you to implement full-fledged DevOps scripts and improve the quality of the developed solutions.
New features such as Cloud Deployment Projects allow you to configure and then manage target deployment environments, enable diagnostic modes, and everything is possible directly from Visual Studio. Cloud Deployment Projects are part of Azure SDK 2.5 and are available now.
Release Management for Visual Studio is also available today as a preliminary version of the service. Release Management allows organizations to manage complex deployment environments and debug processes between development, testing, and operation. This allows for more frequent release of high-quality product releases, and therefore, faster achieve business goals.

Time to program!

No matter who you are, a student, an enthusiast, an employee of a large company or a startup, an open source solution developer, Visual Studio will allow you to realize your initiatives productively for a variety of platforms and devices. Thanks to the services of Visual Studio Online, you can organize your work, use Azure to build the infrastructure of your solutions.