Visual Studio, what’s the difference?

 

Should I stay or should I go … with Visual Studio 2005 or 2008 is the question in this particular case. At the moment I’m using VS 05, but since Microsoft introduced DreamSpark any student (in North America, Europe or Asia at the moment) can get Visual Studio 2008 Pro for free.

 

Are there reasons for moving to VS 2005 instead of 2008 even though 2008 is the newest version with support for .NET 3.5? Minimizing risk is probably the major driver for deciding on VS 2005. After all, it’s been out in the market for almost two years and it’s stable and mature. There’s also the common wisdom that you shouldn’t deploy a Microsoft product that doesn’t have at least one service pack. Mind you that SP1 for Visual Studio didn’t come out until 12 months after the release of the product. Microsoft is no longer in the mode where the Service Pack has to hit 6 months after release because there were quality issues that needed to be fixed.

So what is new in 2008? And what stuff will I actually use? Well according to Microsoft, this is what’s new, but how much of that will I use? Well as I have been looking over it lately, I really can only find one real thing that I will use. The support for .NET 3.5, as I said in my previous post I am currently trying to learn C# so I believe I will upgrade when I find the time. Oh and I forgot the most important reason as to why I’m upgrading… It’s free