dotNet 3.0

[Terry Holland]

I have been asked to do a bit of research into the dotNet 3.0 framework to
try to determine when we should upgrade to this environment.
Ive done a bit of research and have read about some of the new features
(WWF, WCF, CardSpace & WPF) but I need to know if there will be any negative
impact on any of our existing systems.

Our current setup is

Client Machines
Win XP Pro SP2,
dotNet v2.0.50727
VS 2005

Server
Win 2003 R2 SP2

Where would I find a good resource for any problems that might occurr if we
upgraded.

Also, I want to have a look at new features on offer in the dotnet 3.0
framework. Can I use WWF, WCF & WPF in VS 2005? If so, where would I find
good infor & examples on this?

 

[Pavel Minaev]

I have been asked to do a bit of research into the dotNet 3.0 framework to
try to determine when we should upgrade to this environment.  
Ive done a bit of research and have read about some of the new features
(WWF, WCF, CardSpace & WPF) but I need to know if there will be any negative
impact on any of our existing systems.

No. .NET 3.0 is in effect an incremental update - it just adds a
couple new libraries to the framework, without touching the existing
libraries, compiler, or the runtime. All your code that worked under
2.0 will work exactly the same under 3.0.

Note that this is not true for 3.5, which updates 2.0 to 2.0 SP1 - so
there is some possibility of breakage there.

Also, I want to have a look at new features on offer in the dotnet 3.0
framework.  Can I use WWF, WCF & WPF in VS 2005?  If so, where would I find
good infor & examples on this?

You can just add references to 3.0 assemblies in your VS2005 project,
and start using classes from them. You won't get the visual WPF and WF
designers, though - there was a preview version of those available for
VS2005, but it was just that - a preview, and not very stable one at
that. IIRC Microsoft has pulled it from downloads not long ago, and
stated that you should just use VS2008 now that it's out.

 

[wdudek]

We have been running on the 3.5 framework since a couple of weeks after it
was released into production ( January??). We have WCF applications hosted in
IIS and using LINQ that are used by the entire company, about 5 heavily used
websites running under 3.5 using various amounts of enhancements (WCF, LINQ,
Extension Methods) and have had no major problems.
We encountered an issue with a default size limit in wcf messages, but I
was able to get an answer quickly from this message board.
The operating system we are running are very similiar to your
environment and the user base for these applications is roughly a couple of
hundred people give or take.
As Pavel Said 2.0 applications can take advantage of libraries written
in 3.0/3.5, and can consume wcf services as web services without a problem,
although the syntax changes slightly to call them. I have heard the 2005
designers for WCF/WPF/etc.. are not nearly as user friendly as the ones that
are part of visual studio 2008.
One nice feature in 2008 if you are doing web development is the ability
to debug javascript.

 

[Terry Holland]

Thanks guys

I guess I should download a trial version of vs2008. Can I have vs2005 &
vs2008 run on same machine without problem? Is the installation of 2008 a
seperate installation or does it upgrade 2005? - I would not want to upgrade
my dev machine until we have decided to go with (or not) 2008

 

[Pavel Minaev]

There's no "trial version" of Visual Studio.

Actually, there is:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/products/aa700831.aspx