• Chart: Current Developer Service Packs
• Illustration: Putting Codenames on the Map

The next three releases of Visual Studio (VS) will be synchronized with major operating system and server application releases, Microsoft has revealed. The next release should come at the same time as Windows .NET Server and integrates previously available add-ons for programming mobile devices and working in the Java language. Subsequent releases are tied to SQL Server "Yukon" and the "Longhorn" version of Windows. Microsoft hopes future versions of VS will encourage developers to build applications that rely on the latest releases of these server products and thereby drive server upgrades.

"Everett" Release Integrates Add-Ons

The most imminent release of VS is code-named Everett (a city just north of Microsoft’s Redmond, WA, headquarters). The ship date for Everett is tied to Windows .NET Server and is expected to be late 2002 or early 2003. Because of the relatively short time between the initial release of Visual Studio (in Mar. 2002) and of Everett, few new features are planned, but Everett does integrate some important add-ons which were previously downloaded and installed separately. These components include the following:

Visual J# is Microsoft’s development tool for building .NET Framework applications with the Java programming language. (For more details on Visual J#, see "Java Returns to Visual Studio" on page 23 of the Aug. 2002 Update.)

Smart Device Extensions consist of the final release of the .NET Compact Framework (a version of the .NET Framework, currently in beta, that is adapted to run on Pocket PCs and other Windows CE devices) as well as tools that allow developers to debug applications running on a Windows CE device.

ASP.NET Mobile Controls (formerly known as the Microsoft Mobile Internet Toolkit, or MMIT) are a set of ASP.NET controls for building Web pages that can be viewed on devices such as mobile phones.

In addition to bundling components that were previously available separately, the Everett release includes improved ANSI C++ compliance, which allows developers using C++ to compile a broader set of source code, such as third-party source code libraries. The lack of ANSI conformance has led some C++ developers (chiefly those who must compile their source code for both Windows and Unix) to hold off from adopting Visual C++ on the Windows platform. Although the C++ compiler in Everett does not yet fully conform with ANSI, it makes significant inroads and, along with the recent hiring of Stan Lippman (one of the pioneers of the C++ language) and Herb Sutter (secretary of the ISO/ANSI C++ committee), appears to signal a change in Microsoft’s attitude toward ANSI conformance.

In addition to Everett, Microsoft has made some service packs available for the current tools. (See the sidebar "Current Developer Service Packs".)

"VS for Yukon" Targets SQL

The release after Everett—VS for Yukon, sometimes referred to as Whidbey (an island north of Everett)—is timed to coincide with the next release of SQL Server, code-named Yukon. Microsoft has published only a general outline of features for Whidbey, largely because it is not expected until late 2003 and the development team has until now been focused on finishing Everett.

The features of Whidbey that are known or can be surmised fall into several areas:

Building on Yukon. Yukon will be the first version of SQL Server to support server-side code (stored procedures) created with the .NET Framework and .NET languages such as Visual Basic .NET and C#, in addition to SQL Server's SQL dialect, Transact-SQL. Whidbey is expected to include supporting tools to enable developers to write, deploy, and debug such stored procedures.

Office programmability. Visual Studio underwent a massive transformation in the move to the .NET platform, but Office 11 will continue to use the pre-.NET Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) environment and Office's COM interfaces to write macros and applications that employ Office components. With Whidbey, Microsoft is expected to support the traditional COM- and VBA-based approach, as well as enabling developers to use newer .NET technologies, although the company has not given any details on how that will be accomplished. It might be done by incorporating both the VBA and .NET environments into Office (forcing developers to choose between two potentially incompatible environments) or by providing a single environment that supports both the VBA/COM and .NET programming models (which the current release of VS does not).

Web service enhancements. As Web service specifications continue to develop, Microsoft will likely update the .NET Framework to include support for as many new specifications as possible.

IDE improvements. Whidbey is likely to incorporate some ideas that first appeared in Web Matrix—a free, lightweight tool for building ASP.NET applications that Microsoft made available in July 2002. Among other features, Web Matrix allows developers to share reusable components with one another through a Web site. For more information on Web Matrix, see "Web Matrix Makes ASP.NET More Accessible" on page 21 of the Aug. 2002 Update.

"VS for Longhorn" Unclear

After the Whidbey release, the next release of VS will coincide with Longhorn (named after a popular bar at a ski resort in British Columbia about 200 miles north of Redmond, WA)—the next major release of Windows. (For a graphical interpretation of these code names, see the illustration "Putting Codenames on the Map".) Even by Microsoft’s typically optimistic projections, Longhorn is not due until 2004. The VS development team itself will not begin to craft product specifications and make decisions about what features will and will not be in VS for Longhorn until specifications for Longhorn are available and a beta release of VS for Yukon is complete. Until then, any information on the feature content of either Longhorn or VS for Longhorn is highly speculative. For more information about the features that might be included in Longhorn, see "Windows Two-Year Plan Outlined" on page 8 of the June 2002 Update.