Microsoft Integrating jQuery with Visual Studio

Scott Guthrie over at MS made an announcement that the open source jQuery library will be integrated into Visual Studio. (http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/09/28/jquery-and-microsoft.aspx) This means they also treat it as a supported product with technical support contracts, and will use it to build controls for ASP.Net.

Edit: Microsoft isn’t necessarily ‘supporting’ it like they would their own proprietary technologies, but is more releasing it with their product and making it a part of the ‘offering’ for a developer. Microsoft doesn’t own jQuery at all or anything like that, it’s still under it’s own MIT license.

Awesome.

It’s always good to see the communities tools and voice being heard and integrated, and this is one of those tools (the jQuery library: http://jquery.com/) I use often,
Richard Harbridge

Exciting (for .Net/VS Developers) .Net 4 and VS 2010

Just wanted to point out that a few days ago Microsoft unvieled some information on the new .Net and Visual Studio enhancements they are preparing for 2010.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/sep08/09-29VS10PR.mspx

That’s right I am super excited to play with the new stuff before I have even gone through every new feature released in the 2008 packages. (Personally one of the things I have been loving recently is the CSS and styling UI enhancements see Daniel Moth’s good screen cast of these here (if interested): mms://wm.microsoft.com/ms/uk/msdn/nuggets/v2_CSSinVisualStudio2008_Moth.wmv)

I really like many of the new focuses that Microsoft is putting forward and the way Team Foundation Server is improving the rate of process adoption in many development groups. The further they get with the enhancements the easier it is to develop and really focus on developing (if you are a developer) without being as distracted by the troubles of communication and tracking.

Even if you aren’t a developer this is still good news, because the more they work towards that UML approach and enhance the ways Business Analysts and Consultants can communicate their requirements and expectations to developers the more powerful the developed solutions will be.

Excited for the future,
Richard Harbridge