Visual Studio 2008 released

Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 , code-named Orcas, is the successor to Visual Studio 2005. It was released to MSDN subscribers on 19 November 2007. The codename Orcas is, like Whidbey, a reference to an island in Puget Sound, Orcas Island. The successor to Visual Studio 2008 is codenamed Rosario. The source code for the Visual Studio 2008 IDE will be available under a shared-source license to some of Microsoft's partners and ISVs.

Visual Studio 2008 is focused on development of Windows Vista, 2007 Office system, and Web applications. Among other things, it brings a new language feature, LINQ, new versions of C# and Visual Basic languages, a Windows Presentation Foundation visual designer, and improvements to the .NET Framework. It also features a new HTML/CSS editor influenced by Microsoft Expression Web. Visual Studio 2008 requires .NET Framework 3.5 and by default configures compiled assemblies to run on .NET Framework 3.5; but it also supports multi-targeting which lets the developers choose which version of the .NET Framework (out of 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, Silverlight CoreCLR or .NET Compact Framework) the assembly runs on. Visual Studio 2008 also includes new code analysis tools, including the new Code Metrics tool.

Visual Studio 2008 features a XAML based designer (codenamed Cider), workflow designer, LINQ to SQL designer (for defining the type mappings and object encapsulation for SQL data), XSLT debugger, XSD designer, JavaScript Intellisense support, JavaScript Debugging support, support for UAC manifests, a concurrent build system, among others. It also ships with an enhanced set of UI widgets, both for WinForms and WPF. It also includes a multithreaded build engine to compile multiple source files (and build the executable file) in a project across different threads simultaneously.