James first started this website when learning Visual Basic back in 1999 whilst studying his GCSEs. The site grew steadily over the years while being run as a hobby - to a regular monthly audience of over half a million unique developers. In July '08 James left his job as Head of Development at a digital agency in London to focus his energies on developerFusion full-time.
A major benefit of the .NET Framework is that whatever language you choose to program in, everything is compiled to an identical Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL). As a result, the only debugger needed is the one in VS.NET, and this is as powerful as ever, with cross-language debugging of the .NET languages, scripting, SQL, Win32 native applications, and server processes.
VB programmers do, however, face a slight step backwards in terms of debugging, due to the fact that projects now need to be compiled into an EXE/DLL before running the project. In addition, Edit and Continue is only supported for VC++.NET; VB programmers are no longer able to edit code at runtime.
Developers are, as usual, spoilt for choice with the range of tools and windows available for use. These include a new 'Server Explorer' window that gives you access to all key services running on any network computer, an integrated web browser, task list and command window for those who don't like using menus! In addition, VS.NET now has integrated support for creating Windows Installer setups and Merge Modules, and potential for extending the Visual Studio IDE through add-ins is as extensive as ever.
The new Server Explorer window
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