Thread: VS2010 vs VS2008

  1. #1
    Woof, woof! zacs7's Avatar
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    VS2010 vs VS2008

    G'day,

    I recently got an internship at a very large software firm. Without knowing what version of VS they use until I start, would I be wise to use 2008 or 2010 to practice on?

    Other than the obvious "whichever they use". Is there a large difference between 2010 and 2008? I have access to both for free (professional ed., legally...).

    Thanks
    Zac :-)

  2. #2
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    If you plan to code a lot with threads, definitely go with 2010. They did great advancements on the profiler and debugger. The profiler especially. It's a thing of beauty.

    My personal opinion is that, for anything else, it doesn't matter. 2008, 2010, same stuff.
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

  3. #3
    l'Anziano DavidP's Avatar
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    For the most part the IDE has the same interface. A new user to Visual Studio wouldn't really know the difference (although 2010 does have a nice new skin!).

    Visual Studio 2010 does have some very nice new features, but if you're just starting out...go with whichever.
    My Website

    "Circular logic is good because it is."

  4. #4
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    I couldn't stand the new "skin". I reverted it back to "classic" mode.

    But I'm grumpy that way. I will always fail to understand this fixation in altering player environments from version to version in a lot of software. It's a complete productivity fail and often an offense to long time users. If you are going to change the colors or your interface, just for the sake of changing, at least make it optional, for pete's sake. Bloody mongrels!
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

  5. #5
    In my head happyclown's Avatar
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    The help interface for VS2010 is horrid.

    Why the heck switch to a browser interface? They should have stuck to the standalone help application of 2008. It had searching, indexing, bells and whistles that made getting help easy and efficient.

    Since 2010 was only recently launched, my guess is they didn't have enough time to get the help application up to speed, and are still working on it. At least I hope so.

    EDIT:

    Quote Originally Posted by Mario F. View Post
    I couldn't stand the new "skin". I reverted it back to "classic" mode.
    How is this done, Mario?
    Last edited by happyclown; 05-27-2010 at 09:06 PM.
    OS: Linux Mint 13(Maya) LTS 64 bit.

  6. #6
    Woof, woof! zacs7's Avatar
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    Cool thanks :-)

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    They have to change something so you won't feel ripped off.

    I still use VS2005 at work...

  8. #8
    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
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    I use 2003, 2005, and 2008 at work. We have yet to use 2010. There is a big diff between 2003 and 2005, minor diff between 2005 and 2008, and thus I'm not expecting sweeping changes in 2010 unless the dev team spent too much time talking to Office devs and have adopted that horrible new ribbon bar.

  9. #9
    Cat without Hat CornedBee's Avatar
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    2010 has IntelliSense rewritten from scratch. It now uses an EDG-based parser for source validation and gives online compiler errors (underlining while you type), and a completely different storage system for the data. It should work a lot better than in the old versions.
    All the buzzt!
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  10. #10
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by happyclown View Post
    How is this done, Mario?
    Oh! I can see the way I wrote it could lead to confusion. What I mean is that I reverted back to 2008. Being that, so far, I don't have a particular need for 2010.

    Quote Originally Posted by CornedBee View Post
    2010 has IntelliSense rewritten from scratch. It now uses an EDG-based parser for source validation and gives online compiler errors (underlining while you type), and a completely different storage system for the data. It should work a lot better than in the old versions.
    Oh yes. The IntelliSense. I'm always complaining about Intellisense and completely forgot to mention that. It seems to indeed work a lot better from all the people reporting about it.
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

  11. #11
    Registered User Sharke's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bubba View Post
    ...and thus I'm not expecting sweeping changes in 2010 unless the dev team spent too much time talking to Office devs and have adopted that horrible new ribbon bar.
    Don't whale on the ribbon, man! I love the ribbon!

  12. #12
    Registered User Sharke's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mario F. View Post
    Oh yes. The IntelliSense. I'm always complaining about Intellisense and completely forgot to mention that. It seems to indeed work a lot better from all the people reporting about it.
    The fact that it doesn't always work properly in 2008 drives me crazy: rightly or wrongly I've come to rely on it to let me know that I'm working with pointers with the right level of indirection etc...but sometimes it won't kick in when I type an attribute and I find myself in that strange wilderness where I'm pretty sure I'm typing it right but the lack of Intellisense is making me doubt myself. Sometimes if I stop and save the file, delete the attribute name and type it again, it kicks in. Sometimes it never kicks in and I find myself compiling just to make sure. If this is fixed in 2010 I might have to upgrade.

  13. #13
    l'Anziano DavidP's Avatar
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    Yeah 2010 has very nice intellisense.

    It also has .NET 4.0 support.

    It also closes down that stupid "Start-up tab" when you open a project, thank goodness.

    It also seems to be faster in a few areas.
    My Website

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  14. #14
    Disrupting the universe Mad_guy's Avatar
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    If you're working on even a remotely large C++ project, definitely go for VS2010. The intellisense for it is rock solid, even in the face of things like boost, etc.
    operating systems: mac os 10.6, debian 5.0, windows 7
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  15. #15
    Registered /usr
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    It's funny that the only IntelliSense I rate is that which is in VS 6.0 (twelve years old?).
    Obviously I'm not a programmer at work.

    I tried 2003... didn't really like it. I was asked to do something in work that warranted installing 2008 briefly, was better but found the IDE extremely slow.

    You do sometimes hear the VS team talking about trying to recapture the 6.0 "feel". I just want an IDE that doesn't get in my way.

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