Orcas Beta 2 Released (a few days ago)

[Jon Skeet [C# MVP]]

Re: .NET FX 3.5

Is this considered a "major upgrade" to the framework, itself, or is it
mostly marketing terminology for major add-ons, as in .NET 3.0?

I'm not sure I see your point. There are no significant CLR changes, if
that's what you mean - but it contains LINQ, ADO.NET 3.0 (etc), and
some improvements to the core functionality like dates and times.

Most importantly IMO it contains the appropriate types to support all
of the C# 3 features. (You can use some of them on earlier versions,
but extension methods for example require the ExtensionAttribute of
System.Core.)

 

[Bob Johnson]

RE:
<< I'm not sure I see your point.>>

Ahhh, but it's not MY point:

http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=706303&SiteID=1
"Basically .net framework 3.0 = .net framework 2.0 + (wcf + wpf + wf + wcs)
= .net framework 2.0 + winfx"

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/winfx/Aa663314.aspx
"The .NET Framework 3.0 is an additive release to the .NET Framework 2.0"

http://blogs.msdn.com/brada/archive/2006/06/10/625717.aspx
"the name change from WinFX to .NET Framework 3.0!"
and
"While this would avoid the ".NET Framework 3.0 includes .NET Framework 2.0"
issue ..."
and
"To be explicit, if the .NET Framework 2.0 is already on the box then the
install of 3.0 only lays down the new assemblies..."
and
"While we are doing amazing innovations at the CLR level, they are going to
take a bit longer to bake and I don't want to freeze our top level version
number during that time"...
this in response to the idea that 3.0 should have been versioned as 2.X
rather than 3.0.


Re:
<< There are no significant CLR changes, if that's what you mean >>
In retrospect, that's what I was thinking (CLR). I'll be a bit more precise
next time, as "the framework, itself" is actually quite vague. Thanks for
pointing that out.

-Bob"

 

[Frans Bouma [C# MVP]]

Superb - thanks!

Slightly surprised at the lack of notification...

Lack of notification? It looked like everyone with a blog (except
me ) blogged about the release.

FB


--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lead developer of LLBLGen Pro, the productive O/R mapper for .NET
LLBLGen Pro website: http://www.llblgen.com
My .NET blog: http://weblogs.asp.net/fbouma
Microsoft MVP (C#)
------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Mark Rae [MVP]]

Lack of notification? It looked like everyone with a blog (except
me ) blogged about the release.

Guess Jon and I missed it...

 

[Will]

Cool! Thanks, Jon. I hadn't heard a thing.

There is a write up on the new language shortcuts at
http://www.ftponline.com/vsm/2007_07/magazine/columns/csharp/

 

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?=]

I'd like to try it out, but I can't risk messing up my development
computer. Does anyone have experience of running the beta side-by-side
with VS 2005? Any gotchas there?

Go for the VPC version.

It gives a nice isolation between serious work and experimenting.

Arne

 

[Mark Rae [MVP]]

Go for the VPC version.

It gives a nice isolation between serious work and experimenting.

Yes, definitely. I'm running it on 64-bit Vista Business through VMWare
Workstation 6, but the principle is the same - mess up, and the worst case
scenario is nothing more than a rebuild of the virtual machine; the host
machine is unaffected...

 

[Jon Skeet [C# MVP]]

Go for the VPC version.

It gives a nice isolation between serious work and experimenting.

True, but at a vast difference in performance - at least on my laptop.

Yes, I *may* need to rebuild my laptop if things go badly wrong - but
I'm actually reasonably confident in this build, and rebuilding my
laptop wouldn't be the worst thing in the world anyway. I suspect that
in the course of the next 4 months I'm going to save more than the time
involved in rebuilding my laptop just in the difference in performance
due to not running on a VPC. It's also significantly more convenient,
too.

Of course, if you've got monster machines or hardware-supported
virtualisation, that's a different matter - but 2008 beta 1 was really
chugging on VPC 2007. (It was slightly better on VMWare, but still not
"native" speed - and VMWare has other downsides.)

It's horses for courses, clearly...

 

[Marc Gravell]

Just a warning to all... installing 3.5 appears to have the capacity
to play merry hell with any existing 3.0 projects... I can't change
the target framework to 3.0 as it can't find WinFX any more etc... and
all the dlls deleted from "reference assemblies"...

It might be a simple fix, but I haven't found it yet ;-p

I suspect it fried itself...

Marc

 

[Jon Skeet [C# MVP]]

Just a warning to all... installing 3.5 appears to have the capacity
to play merry hell with any existing 3.0 projects... I can't change
the target framework to 3.0 as it can't find WinFX any more etc... and
all the dlls deleted from "reference assemblies"...

It might be a simple fix, but I haven't found it yet ;-p

I suspect it fried itself...

Ouch. What operating system are you on? It doesn't seem to have that
problem on my Vista installation.

 

[Marc Gravell]

XP-pro on the box in question. I have no idea if this is supported or
not, but heck: the installer had it's chance to whinge if it didn't
like it.

I have posted full error message at connect:
https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=289965

Marc

 

[Mark Rae [MVP]]

Ouch. What operating system are you on? It doesn't seem to have that
problem on my Vista installation.

Mine neither...

 

[Smithers]

<<It doesn't seem to have that problem on my Vista installation.>>

No problems here either -- been using 2008 Beta 2 for a week now.

 

[Marc Gravell]

Jon Skeet> It doesn't seem to have that problem on my Vista
installation.
Mark Rae> Mine neither...
Smithers> No problems here either -- been using 2008 Beta 2 for a week
now.

Yes - I guessed it wasn't a common case, which is why I deliberately
phrased it "appears to have the capacity", rather than as an absolute.
But I can say for sure that it has made a /complete/ mess of at least
one install, so just to tread a little carefully...

I do genuinely hope that it is an isolated (or edge) case.
Marc

 

[Jon Skeet [C# MVP]]

Yes - I guessed it wasn't a common case, which is why I deliberately
phrased it "appears to have the capacity", rather than as an absolute.
But I can say for sure that it has made a /complete/ mess of at least
one install, so just to tread a little carefully...

Oh absolutely. I wasn't trying to imply that I doubted your system's
hosed-ness.

I do genuinely hope that it is an isolated (or edge) case.

In some ways I hope that it's *not* an edge case - I'd rather the beta
2 (which is likely to be installed on VPCs for the most part) had a
common but serious problem which is easy enough to diagnose and fix
(due to being common) than that it only existed as an edge case which
made it through to release and still hurt people then.

Jon

 

[Marc Gravell]

I'd rather the beta 2 (which is likely to be installed on

VPCs for the most part) had a common but serious problem
which is easy enough to diagnose and fix...

I agree, which is actually exactly why I decided to throw caution to
the wind and install on a typical, brown-field, seen some usage
desktop, so that any teething issues might be obvious. Well, it
fried ;-p Not a huge problem to reinstall from scratch (probably
overdue anyway), and I can always try uninstalling / reinstalling
VS2005, WinFX and VS2008 first...
But connect just closed it as not reproducible, so I doubt anyone will
benefit from my pain...

Marc