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Editor's picks

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  Visual Studio 2010 Professional

  Software (Microsoft Software)
  

  Rating (12 reviews):

  (4.3/5)

  

  Awesome Tool, incredibly intuitive and packed with features

  I've done VBA programming for awhile and I decided to take the plunge into .NET programming, primarily with VB.net. I've had this for only a day but I am extremely impressed with the robust features and "on-the-fly" developing support tools this has. I mostly played in the Office 2010 add-in templates and it is impressive how much work it saves you. It has everything from the calling procedures, ribbon customizations, and deployment solutions all set up and ready to go. And that is only one small functionality for one purpose. I cannot wait to start dabbling in the database functionalities and other features this has to offer. 5/5 T. Nield - See all my reviews, November 16, 2011

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  Great Product

  This product has some great new improvements and seems to work fine. My only complaint is that Microsoft really socks it to you in terms of price. Apple provides its new Xcode 4 software good for programming on Macs, iPhones, and Ipads to non developers for less than 5 bucks. Free if you are a member of their developers group. 4/5 J. White - See all my reviews, March 14, 2011

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  Visual Studio 2010 Pro

  Visual Studio 2010 is an excellent product. I am using it for Visual Basic development. It makes programming easy and intuitive. 5/5 Kevin F. Kinion (Port Orange, FL USA) - See all my reviews, June 10, 2011

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  List Price: $589.95
  

  Microsoft Visual Studio Team Explorer 2010

  Test Case Management

  Unit Testing

  Office and SharePoint Development

  Windows Development

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  Professional Visual Studio 2010 (Wrox Programmer to Programmer)

  Book (Wrox)
  

  Rating (12 reviews):

  (3.9/5)

  

  Visual Studio Tome

  I've been using Visual Studio for development for as long as .NET has been around,I've had no problem getting code written, compiled and debugged.In the back of my mind I knew that Visual Studio had a heap of features andwould often see a presenter press a button here, or change a setting there,and would think that one day I'll spend some time digging deeper into Visual Studio.With the release of 2010, Visual Studio is bigger than ever, and I'm really glad thatI choose this book as my tour guide.I was a bit arrogant to think that I could learn all the features of Visual Studio withoutthis book, it took 4 authors (and it's not a little book at all), to cover Visual Studio 2010.Any full time developer who hasn't read a book on Visual Studio, now's about time you did, and I recommend this tome(did I mention its not a little book?!). 4/5 Jason Schluter (Adelaide, Australia) - See all my reviews This review is from: Professional Visual Studio 2010 (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) (Paperback) I've been using Visual Studio for development for as long as .NET has been around,I've had no problem getting code written, compiled and debugged.In the back of my mind I knew that Visual Studio had a heap of features andwould often see a presenter press a button here, or change a setting there,and would think that one day I'll spend some time digging deeper into Visual Studio.With the release of 2010, Visual Studio is bigger than ever, and I'm really glad thatI choose this book as my tour guide.I was a bit arrogant to think that I could learn all the features of Visual Studio withoutthis book, it took 4 authors (and it's not a little book at all), to cover Visual Studio 2010.Any full time developer who hasn't read a book on Visual Studio, now's about time you did, and I recommend this tome(did I mention its not a little book?!). Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you? , June 22, 2010

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  Great Book for novice and experienced

  Two huge learning curves await anyone that wants to know about MSFT's .NET framework 1) The Framework itself and 2) The tool to develop the applicaitons. Having spent lots of time learning just the framework (going back to version 1.0) I hadn't dug into the IDE much. I just downloaded the free versions of Visual Studio Express and dug in. Owning the current version of VS2010 Professional has changed that for me, and I figured I should "dig-in". This book is perfect for that.There are 57 chapters in this book with almost 100% focus on Visual Studio. Very rarely does the book go into the Framework details other than to show you how to set up specific things within Visual Studio to go to next step. It's exactly the book you need if you are a good .NET programmer but want to take it to the next "Professional" level. By learning the internals of Visual Studio itself, you are destined to become a "Professional" .NET developer.I highly recommend this one, as... 5/5 John W. Peters "Mr. Javaman" (Texas) - See all my reviews, September 20, 2010

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  Good coverage, some missing sentences, broken examples

  As shortly said in the title:according to me this book offers a good (i.e. extended) coverage of the features offered by Visual Studio 2010, including the many new features in this 2010 version. There's plenty of features described, and as a professional you cannot go without at least knowing that they exist... You have to know well your main tool!In the final chapters the book also gives an overview of so-called "Application Lifecycle Management" related features: check the other Visual Studio Wrox book on A.L.M. if you need a deeper description on those topics.Maybe, in order to get the book done so quickly after VS2010 release, not everything has been thoroughly reviewed: and here's the bad part.It happened many times to find broken/bugged code examples; code samples with missing bits or missing textual description; changes in subsequent versions of a code sample with misleading highlighted differences. The result is that sometimes you are left to wonder if... 3/5 GiUmaTo - See all my reviews This review is from: Professional Visual Studio 2010 (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) (Paperback) As shortly said in the title:according to me this book offers a good (i.e. extended) coverage of the features offered by Visual Studio 2010, including the many new features in this 2010 version. There's plenty of features described, and as a professional you cannot go without at least knowing that they exist... You have to know well your main tool!In the final chapters the book also gives an overview of so-called "Application Lifecycle Management" related features: check the other Visual Studio Wrox book on A.L.M. if you need a deeper description on those topics.Maybe, in order to get the book done so quickly after VS2010 release, not everything has been thoroughly reviewed: and here's the bad part.It happened many times to find broken/bugged code examples; code samples with missing bits or missing textual description; changes in subsequent versions of a code sample with misleading highlighted differences. The result is that sometimes you are left to wonder if... Read more Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you? , November 22, 2010

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  List Price: $49.99
  

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  Visual Studio 2010 Professional Upgrade

  Software (Microsoft Software)
  

  Rating (7 reviews):

  (3.9/5)

  

  Excellent Upgrade For Visual Studio

  I installed the product on a Win 7 64 bit system and it works great. Anyone with prior Visual Studio experience will no doubt be very happy with it. 4/5 J. White - See all my reviews, December 13, 2010

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  VS2010

  VS is a great developmnet tool. This package also includes a basic msdn subscription.I use it together with xamarin - mono for android to write android applications in C#. An excellent combination. 5/5 Henrik - See all my reviews Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Visual Studio 2010 Professional Upgrade (Software) VS is a great developmnet tool. This package also includes a basic msdn subscription.I use it together with xamarin - mono for android to write android applications in C#. An excellent combination. Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you? , January 19, 2012

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  Works great - nice upgrade

  Visual Studio just keeps getting better with 2010 - even seems to load faster than my old 2005 model. Much cleaner navigation and work area. Installed very easily on Windows XP - no problems at all. 5/5 William L. Anfin Jr. "a.k.a. Walkin' Willie" (Rock Hill, SC) - See all my reviews, September 19, 2011

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  List Price: $549.00
  Price: $460.53
  You Save: $88.47 (16%)

  Customizable Development Experience

  Web Development

  Cloud Development

  Version Control

  Work Item Tracking

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  Microsoft Visual Studio 2010: A Beginner's Guide

  Book (McGraw-Hill Osborne Media)
  

  Rating (14 reviews):

  (3.3/5)

  

  A great introduction to Visual Studio 2010

  One may wonder how anyone could write a decent introductory book to Visual Studio and related programming, do it just over 400 pages with decent sized type and screenshots, and still cover a little bit of everything from Asp.Net to MVC to WPF. This book successfully manages that task quite well.The first four chapters get you up to speed on finding your way around visual studio enough to get a project started. It also includes brief tutorial on programming in both Visual Basic and C#. If you have programmed in other languages, or you are just starting programming, this will give you just enough knowledge to get started inside Visual Studio.. It covers program structure, some language syntax, and how to best use the Visual Studio make programming tasks easier.The next three chapters cover creating projects, debugging, and accessing data. While whole books can be written on these subjects, Joe manages to hit the useful high points. Since much time can be... 5/5 K. Halvorson - See all my reviews, May 16, 2010

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  For Beginners

  I am a beginning programmer at least in C#, this book has been helpful in a lot of ways but I have to mention that the author must have been in a hurry to get this book out as a lot of his C# code samples are missing required brackets "{" and some lines of code, for instance take page 76 under C# (MessagePrinter.cs)in the middle of the page you will notice 3 opening brackets and 4 closing brackets, which means the reader has to figure out what the author forgot to type in, in this case it was the class statement that was missing, if you are looking to learn C# i would be carefull with this book at is seem's to be missing a few statements in the examples, visual basic readers may not have had this problem in their code samples....ThanksEric. 3/5 Eric "Eric" (Laguna Beach, Ca. USA) - See all my reviews Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Microsoft Visual Studio 2010: A Beginner's Guide (Paperback) I am a beginning programmer at least in C#, this book has been helpful in a lot of ways but I have to mention that the author must have been in a hurry to get this book out as a lot of his C# code samples are missing required brackets "{" and some lines of code, for instance take page 76 under C# (MessagePrinter.cs)in the middle of the page you will notice 3 opening brackets and 4 closing brackets, which means the reader has to figure out what the author forgot to type in, in this case it was the class statement that was missing, if you are looking to learn C# i would be carefull with this book at is seem's to be missing a few statements in the examples, visual basic readers may not have had this problem in their code samples....ThanksEric. Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you? , May 23, 2010

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  Helpful but some assembly necessary

  I like the book and it's really helping me in making 'baby steps' into C#. But if I were an absolute beginner, some of the technical difficulties might have made me give up. While I'm only through Chapter 3 so far, there are two things I'd point out (one of which another reviewer has mentioned):1. The code samples have mistakes in them. I know how hard it is, trust me, and it may well be an editor's error - it may well be unique to the Kindle edition as well. But as has been mentioned, leaving out important directives in code just really frustrates the reader no end. If Joe or the publisher had, on a web site, a link to an 'errata' page that would be *ever* do nice.2. The other thing that took some getting used to for me was that the book covers both C# and VB; and nearly every discussion of code snippets addresses both. Until i got used to skipping over the paragraphs that were not C# (and the even-harder-to-skip-over in line parenthetic comments about VB), I kept goign... 4/5 Miles Kehoe (Cupertino, CA) - See all my reviews Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 : A Beginner's Guide (A Beginners Guide) (Kindle Edition) I like the book and it's really helping me in making 'baby steps' into C#. But if I were an absolute beginner, some of the technical difficulties might have made me give up. While I'm only through Chapter 3 so far, there are two things I'd point out (one of which another reviewer has mentioned):1. The code samples have mistakes in them. I know how hard it is, trust me, and it may well be an editor's error - it may well be unique to the Kindle edition as well. But as has been mentioned, leaving out important directives in code just really frustrates the reader no end. If Joe or the publisher had, on a web site, a link to an 'errata' page that would be *ever* do nice.2. The other thing that took some getting used to for me was that the book covers both C# and VB; and nearly every discussion of code snippets addresses both. Until i got used to skipping over the paragraphs that were not C# (and the even-harder-to-skip-over in line parenthetic comments about VB), I kept goign... Read more Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you? , September 3, 2010

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  List Price: $39.99
  

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  Visual Studio 2010 Professional with MSDN

  Software (Microsoft Software)
  

  Rating (3 reviews):

  (3.0/5)

  

  Save money and get what you paid for!

  This version is identical to the product purchased directly from Microsoft, I have no idea why the earlier reviewer suggested otherwise. You may want to plan for someone to be at home since the package will be shipped with signature required because of the value. 5/5 Codecrafter (Florida) - See all my reviews Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Visual Studio 2010 Professional with MSDN (DVD-ROM) This version is identical to the product purchased directly from Microsoft, I have no idea why the earlier reviewer suggested otherwise. You may want to plan for someone to be at home since the package will be shipped with signature required because of the value. Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you? , January 4, 2011

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  Be careful what you get....

  Be careful when you buy this!!! I thought that I was getting a MSDN Professional Subscription with this product, but instead I got a MSDN Essentials subscription which means you don't get all of the benefits of the subscription that is advertised. (For example, you don't get the magazine subscription or the Education package and your software downloads are a lot LESS than what the Professional subscription offers) I'll keep the software because the tools are what I wanted, but be wary of the subscription. 2/5 Grodoz - See all my reviews Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Visual Studio 2010 Professional with MSDN (DVD-ROM) Be careful when you buy this!!! I thought that I was getting a MSDN Professional Subscription with this product, but instead I got a MSDN Essentials subscription which means you don't get all of the benefits of the subscription that is advertised. (For example, you don't get the magazine subscription or the Education package and your software downloads are a lot LESS than what the Professional subscription offers) I'll keep the software because the tools are what I wanted, but be wary of the subscription. Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you? , September 28, 2010

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  What A Rip Off

  Microsoft raised the price and removed useful tools, such as Office. Too many confusing SKUs. Takes up to two weeks to activate, unless you pay hundreds of dollars more to buy direct from Microsoft. Combined with the fact that increasing amounts of the work I do are for non Microsoft platforms, they picked a really bad time to deliver me such a crummy deal. If it weren't for ASP.NET I could probably be done with them for good. They should definitely watch their virtual backs, the people writing the apps increasingly don't need to put up with this. 2/5 Eric Ruck "NearChaos" (Ellicott City, MD USA) - See all my reviews, December 2, 2010

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  List Price: $1,199.00
  

  Test Case Management

  Office and SharePoint Development

  Windows Development

  Unit Testing

  Microsoft Visual Studio Team Explorer 2010

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  Microsoft Visual Studio Standard 2005 [OLD VERSION]

  Software (Microsoft Software)
  

  Rating (16 reviews):

  (3.7/5)

  

  Adequate, but Quirky

  I was using VC++ 6.0 (I skipped the VS2003 experience) up until last Friday when I received VS2005 Standard Edition from Amazon. All of my comments will refer to the IDE, and I did not have a prior version of the .NET framework on my (Win2K Pro) system. I have also not had a chance to to any .NET stuff.Shipping from Amazon was as promised (I specified next day), and the product arrived in excellent condition.0) Comes on five CDs, and I didn't notice an option anywhere to purchase a DVD version. Microsoft's marketting hype claims 1 disk. Maybe they only have one DVD burner in Redmond, and it's broken. I pitty the Pro Edition buyers if this is the case.1) Takes about 40 minutes to install on a AMD64/3500,1gb RAM system.2) Will install on Win2K Pro as long as you have Service Pack 4 installed.3) It consumes about 3gb, counting MSDN.4) The IDE does not conform to theme settings of OS (annoys the hell outa me). The... 4/5 John M. Simmons "Outlaw Programmer" (Guarding the Texas Border) - See all my reviews, December 12, 2005

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  Almost enough to get the job done.

  Hi all, I've been writing code for over 5 years now and work as a developer for a software company. I'm also MCAD Certified. We use VS.Net 2005 exclusively and the reviews that you will read below about this program sucking are not true. I believe the reason users may think this program sucks is because they don't know how to use it. It's just like anything else, if you don't know how to use the program you won't benefit from its features. Now one thing I will tell you is that when you want to create a Windows Service you WILL need the Professional version of VS.Net 2005 to do that. Other than that I have created atleast 25 web sites ranging from personal sites to enterprise e-commerce, numerous desktop apps that range from single managed apps to apps that use WIN32 API, ie old COM stuff, Class libraries, Server Controls and .Net Remoting objects. So unless you need to create Windows Services this is the package for you. 5/5 Jason Nowicki (Elizabethtown, KY USA) - See all my reviews, December 29, 2006

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  Useful product, but still a challenge

  I primarily write in VB/VBA -- not at a really advanced level, mostly focused on data management -- and am trying to make the transition to asp.net. So my comments are directed along these lines.The IDE itself is generally very good. Layout, menus, etc. are fine, intellisense is fantastic and the error messages are actually pretty useful.That said, getting asp.net to function the way you want it to (if you're moving from VB) is still quite challenging and time consuming. Some examples -- if you add a database to your project, VS won't recognize it until you exit and restart; changing column widths on a grid view is a bit of a challenge (just google "Gridview column widths" and read away) -- mine wouldn't work until I shut VS down and relaunched; master pages are great, but incredibly finicky -- some of my pages appear with the designated breadcrumb, some don't, go figure; three tier data architecture is incredibly challenging b/c the ObjectDataSource is very... 3/5 Eric T. Kirschner (Falls Church, VA) - See all my reviews, September 8, 2006

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  List Price: $299.00
  

  Ideal for the part-time or occasional developer to develop and deploy client-server based Windows, Web, SmartPhone, and Pocket PC applications

  Edit and Continue for simple, intuitive debugging; integrated ClickOnce support

  Support for Visual Basic, C#, C++, and J# languages

  "Drag and drop" user interface designers for virtually every type of application; Master Pages support for maintaining a consistent look and feel across Web applications

  Includes a built-in Web server for testing Web applications, IIS is not needed; integrated SQL Reporting Services

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  Visual Studio 2010 All-in-One For Dummies

  Book (For Dummies)
  

  Rating (5 reviews):

  (3.8/5)

  

  VS 2010 FOR ROCKET SCIENTISTS

  There are some subjects that should naturally be beyond the scope of dummy books. One should not expect a title like, "Flying a spacecraft for dummies". The question then is, does Visual Studio 2010 belong in the rocket science class of subjects? I doubt that Microsoft will take it as a compliment if anyone says that this product is so tough that only nuclear physicists can understand it. I have no doubt that Andrew Moore put a lot of effort into the 900-page book, which going by other Dummy books, is a giant. However, I suggest that the publishers do another review of the title in the interest of the Dummy Book industry.To start with, Andrew Moore states on page 2 that he intends the book to help a lot of people, from application developers to advanced developers and others. One wonders then who a dummy is in his imagination. Please bear in mind that a dummy book should address the needs of a dummy to start with. A dummy of Visual Studio 2010 can be someone who is... 1/5 Glint - See all my reviews Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Visual Studio 2010 All-in-One For Dummies (Paperback) There are some subjects that should naturally be beyond the scope of dummy books. One should not expect a title like, "Flying a spacecraft for dummies". The question then is, does Visual Studio 2010 belong in the rocket science class of subjects? I doubt that Microsoft will take it as a compliment if anyone says that this product is so tough that only nuclear physicists can understand it. I have no doubt that Andrew Moore put a lot of effort into the 900-page book, which going by other Dummy books, is a giant. However, I suggest that the publishers do another review of the title in the interest of the Dummy Book industry.To start with, Andrew Moore states on page 2 that he intends the book to help a lot of people, from application developers to advanced developers and others. One wonders then who a dummy is in his imagination. Please bear in mind that a dummy book should address the needs of a dummy to start with. A dummy of Visual Studio 2010 can be someone who is... Read more Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you? , September 13, 2010

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  Highly Recommended - Definitely a Keeper

  This is an excellent comprehensive study of Visual Studio 2010 and .NET development and web development. It covers all the new bells and whistles in Visual Studio 2010. Many of the sections are "for dummies" because if you have a Visual Studio 2008 background, there is a lot of repetition. But if you're new to .NET development, this book is very detailed and everything you need to know about everything in regard to programming.If you're an experienced developer, it has a lot of entry level material that's easy to skim over. It has a section on creating a Facebook app that I'm looking forward to trying out.This book is definitely a keeper. It advertises 7 books in one, and that is certainly true. There is so much in this book. Although it is definitely best for a beginner, even an experienced developer will learn a lot of new things pertinent to VS2010. 5/5 Nannette "Nannette" (Kansas USA) - See all my reviews This review is from: Visual Studio 2010 All-in-One For Dummies (Paperback) This is an excellent comprehensive study of Visual Studio 2010 and .NET development and web development. It covers all the new bells and whistles in Visual Studio 2010. Many of the sections are "for dummies" because if you have a Visual Studio 2008 background, there is a lot of repetition. But if you're new to .NET development, this book is very detailed and everything you need to know about everything in regard to programming.If you're an experienced developer, it has a lot of entry level material that's easy to skim over. It has a section on creating a Facebook app that I'm looking forward to trying out.This book is definitely a keeper. It advertises 7 books in one, and that is certainly true. There is so much in this book. Although it is definitely best for a beginner, even an experienced developer will learn a lot of new things pertinent to VS2010. Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you? , November 22, 2010

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  Visual Studio 2010 All-in-One For Dummies

  I always cringe when I see a "For Dummies" book. Therefore, it was particularly challenging for me to buy this one. However, I have a Kindle and got to review the downloaded free sample. Now that I have it, I can say that it's a well-written thorough introduction to VS2010. Recommended. 5/5 Allan L. Kaminsky - See all my reviews, August 5, 2010

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  List Price: $39.99
  

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  Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN

  Software (Microsoft Software)
  List Price: $11,899.00
  Price: $5,000.00
  You Save: $6,899.00 (58%)

  Web Performance Testing

  Database Deployment

  IntelliTrace (Historical Debugger)

  Lab Management Confirguration

  Load Testing

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  Coding Faster: Getting More Productive with Microsoft Visual Studio: Covers Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, 2008, and 2010

  Book (Microsoft Press)
  

  Rating (12 reviews):

  (4.2/5)

  

  The reference manual for using Visual Studio

  (Full Disclosure - I work with Zain)Remember when development environments came in boxes that shipped around and you got a set of books inside with the disks? This is one of those books. This is the reference book that you go to for that hotkey to make everything easier. Or to find the fastest way to move around the codebase so you don't lose your train of thought. And it is the ONLY place I've seen where I can find out just what it means when I run Visual Studio the first time and it asks me for my defaults - what's the difference between a C# developer and a default developer? Zain dug out the details and put them in the book so I know what my choice means.This is NOT a tutorial book. This IS a reference manual on all the ins and outs and details of the development environment itself that can help make the difference between wandering lost in the menus and having the code flow from your fingertips. It's a book you definately want on your shelf if you... 5/5 Philip Wheat (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews, October 6, 2011

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  Great for beginners...

  I had a few second thoughts about buying this book knowing that all the content was available on line. After thinking about it for a while I decided to get it. In order to see what is available on line I need to search for it and not knowing what to search for won't get me to the content anytime soon.Although I believe this book will definitely get the beginner up to speed quickly, advanced users will not benefit as much. I was the subject matter expert for the Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Learning Snacks so I had to learn the IDE extensively. I therefore did not learn very much from the material. I can say however, that this book's material is perfect for those who don't have the time to play with VS to learn all the little productivity tips this book offers.The book has a 254 page appendix available for download. Although this is great additional material, I would have preferred it be included in the book. I found the little key at the beginning of... 4/5 T. Anderson (PA USA) - See all my reviews, September 5, 2011

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  Good but not great

  I definitely learned some things from Coding Faster and I thought the layout of the book was good. I received a review copy of this for O'Reilly's blogger program.I wish this book spent a little time with unit testing and/or external application setup to support it in the Express SKUs. In my book unit testing is a huge productivity win, but I get that they mostly were focusing on how to do X or Y and not how to be a better programmer by adopting unit testing. Still, its in the Profession SKU and not mentioned.A great tip that I didn't know - the CTRL key will make intellisense popups transparent - no need to ESCape the popup to see what's under it. Very cool.If you're a seasoned pro, I'd skip the book but if you're learning, it's pretty good. 4/5 itsmatt (Spotsylvania, VA United States) - See all my reviews This review is from: Coding Faster: Getting More Productive with Microsoft Visual Studio: Covers Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, 2008, and 2010 (Paperback) I definitely learned some things from Coding Faster and I thought the layout of the book was good. I received a review copy of this for O'Reilly's blogger program.I wish this book spent a little time with unit testing and/or external application setup to support it in the Express SKUs. In my book unit testing is a huge productivity win, but I get that they mostly were focusing on how to do X or Y and not how to be a better programmer by adopting unit testing. Still, its in the Profession SKU and not mentioned.A great tip that I didn't know - the CTRL key will make intellisense popups transparent - no need to ESCape the popup to see what's under it. Very cool.If you're a seasoned pro, I'd skip the book but if you're learning, it's pretty good. Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you? , September 21, 2011

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  List Price: $39.99
  

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  Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Standard (Old Version)

  Software (Microsoft Software)
  

  Rating (12 reviews):

  (3.2/5)

  

  Good, reliable, quite a change from VC++6.0

  I made a sea-change jump from VC++6.0 to Visual Studio 2008. I miss my old ClassWizard, but it only took a day or so to get familiar with the new methods. Probably the hardest thing to get used to is the change from Alt + E + I to launch Find-In-Files to using Ctrl + Shift + F. Even after weeks of using VS2008, I still do the old key combination.The executables produced are great and the program functions reliably.I would easily buy it again. 4/5 P. Newell "euspane" (Dallas, Texas, USA) - See all my reviews, November 10, 2008

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  VS 2008 Rocks

  VS2008 is an excellent development tool. I couldn't survive without it.In case you're wondering the main difference between Standard and Professional is that Standard doesn't have the Tools for Office development (which I didn't care about). 5/5 D. Zoeller (Indiana) - See all my reviews, July 10, 2009

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  Adoptance problems

  By all counts Visual Studio is a good development environment for C++ programming on Windows, and it is the standard to which others are compared.However VS2008 compatibility issues with VS2005 compiled .lib files have bitten me on several projects as an independent contract programmer in the game industry, and it seems that extremely few companies (at least in the game industry) actually migrate to VS2008, so this product has proven far less useful than I had hoped, as it can not compile most of them without significant work (recompiling libpng/zlib/libjpeg and others that are frequently included as a .lib file in projects, and requesting updated SDKs from middleware vendors).Be warned that this slow adoptance afflicts other software industries as well, they simply do not update to each new VisualStudio version, if you are an independent contractor you may want to purchase VS2005 instead (or in addition to VS2008).Overall I like VS2008 more than... 4/5 Forest Hale "LordHavoc" (OR USA) - See all my reviews, June 24, 2009

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  List Price: $299.00
  

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