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.NET 3.5 and VS2008

The announcement by Microsoft regarding the release of Visual Studio 2008, and the .NET 3.5 Framework is about a month old, but it still deserves a few words of welcome. Two new features in particular have caught my eye.

First, the new ASP.NET AJAX features look very promising. According to Microsoft’s documentation, the new features include both client-side script libraries and new server components. The script libraries are divided into 4 layers: Client Components, Browser Compatibility, Networking, and Core Services. Each of these layers promises to improve common problems with client-side scripting in one way or another. The server components for AJAX development include: Script Support, Web Service improvements, Application Services, and Server Controls. If all of these features are as easy to use as Microsoft suggests, the process of creating complex and responsive Web Applications might just get a little easier.

Second, and perhaps more exciting, is the introduction of a JavaScript debugger. While there are applications available that enable script debugging, being able to step through the code within the Visual Studio IDE will be fantastic. Additionally, VS 2008 will have a JavasScript Intellisense that will automatically infer variable types and method, property, or event names from other scripts.

There are a slew of other new features in the .NET 3.5 Framework as well, but I’ll wait and try them out before I comment on their usefulness.