News


Visual Studio 2015 Update 2 Release Candidate Now Available

Reliability and performance improvements rule on this release candidate, and there are a bevy of new features being tested out with Team Foundation Server 2015 U2 RC as well.

HoloLens Developer Kit Ships at End of March

Just in time for Build in San Francisco, Microsoft will make available a kit for developing for yet another extension of the Windows platform that will have you going all Johnny Mnemonic on your Visual Studio apps. You'll need to be a Windows Insider, though, before you can get your hand -- and face -- on one.

Xamarin's Impact on the Death of Project Astoria

Predictably, Microsoft has pulled the plug on the Windows Bridge for Android, now that the company is absorbing Xamarin. Xamarin's cross-platform development capabilities can already be used to port Windows apps to the Android marketplace.

BREAKING: Microsoft To Acquire Xamarin

Pending regulatory approval, Redmond announced its plans to acquire the mobile cross-platform tools developer. Terms were undisclosed.

Insiders Program for Visual Studio Code Evolves

The retirement of the Insider Program means -- voila! -- the Insiders Build for Visual Studio Code developers.

Visual C++ Technical Preview Available via NuGet Package

Microsoft's Visual Studio Team is trying out a new process for delivering preview code via NuGet that will make the process of testing then unloading software in development a bit easier.

ReThinkDB Preview Available to Windows Users

The company has been putting a year's worth of work porting its open source Web database management system to the Windows platform.

The Fix Is In: Visual Studio 2015 Update 2 CTP Available

These are the fixes you were looking for: more than 300 bugs squashed in C++, as well as a number of editing fixes for those working with C# and Visual Basic projects.

Visual Studio Tools for Unity Updated

Version 2.2 fixes a few integration issues that have been bewitching Unity game developers.

Visual Studio Team Services Stops Twice

When your goal is 99.999-percent uptime, there's a small crack in the window for downtime. That happened with Visual Studio Team Services last week. And it happened within a span of two days.

New Benefits Added to Visual Studio Dev Essentials Program

Visual Studio developers who are part of the Essentials Program now have access to more than $300-worth of Azure credits over a year, as well as the addition of mobile development courses from Xamarin University.

Syncfusion Big Data Platform Now Available

The Windows-based Big Data tools and frameworks suite adds support for Apache Spark, Apache HBase and Scientific Python.

Working with TypeScript 1.7? Check out the 1.8 Beta, Out Now

TypeScript 1.7 has been out a month, but there's already a TypeScript 1.8 in beta and it features compilation improvements, expanded JSX support, plus ChakraCore support.

Update: Visual Studio Tools for Apache Cordova Update 5 Works with Visual Studio Code

Some incremental changes, such as environment switching and improved iOS support, come to TACO, and the group adds a TACO blog for regular tips and tricks. Update now allows for using TACO with Visual Studio Code.

UI, Performance Tweaked in Azure SDK 2.8.2 for Visual Studio 2015

Lots of user feedback-related improvements will make this incremental release easier for developers who want to make the cloud connection.

Coming Soon: Node.js Support in ChakraCore

The goal is to eventually get developers to start working more diligently on apps aimed at the Windows 10 IoT Core platform by way of Node.js. That's where Node.js Tools for Windows IoT 1.5 comes in.

Beta: Apache Cordova Plugin for Azure Mobile App Data Access

Use Node.js or .NET to write data-accessible apps that target Azure Mobile App on the back end with this new plugin.

ASP.NET's New Versioning Gets To the Core of the Matter

ASP.NET 5.0 is no more, at least by name -- it's now ASP.NET Core 1.0. Newer versions of .NET Core 5 and Entity Framework 7 will also follow suit.

ChakraCore Gets Microsoft's Open Source Treatment

Now that the JavaScript engine is open to the development community at large, it paves the way to making it available on Linux and other non-Windows platforms.

Project Rider: A C# IDE Alternative

JetBrains announced that it's developing a C# integrated development environment that works independently of the Visual Studio environment.

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