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The Evolving Role of the Developer

Jay Schmelzer, director of Program Management for the Visual Studio Team at Microsoft, described the new face of application development in today's keynote presentation at the Visual Studio Live! conference in Chicago, titled "Modern Application Development with Visual Studio, .NET and Azure."

Microsoft Addresses Angst About Visual Studio XAML Designer with Update

Microsoft admitted that while it added many new features to the Visual Studio XAML Designer over the years, the tool lost some of its allure among developers, who spoke up about dragging performance and asked for improvements -- which are now here.

Visual Studio 'Eclipsed' as Top IDE in Popularity Ranking

Visual Studio lost its position atop the IDE rankings compiled by the PYPL Index -- based on Google Trends search data -- ceding No. 1 honors to the open source Eclipse.

Telerik Targets Mobile Biz Apps with New Xamarin Theme, DataGrid

The new Telerik R3 2017 release from Progress aims to beef up line-of-business mobile apps with a new Telerik UI theme for its Xamarin offering, along with a preview of a DataGrid component.

Are GitHub and Facebook Challenging Visual Studio?

Microsoft may not have much to worry about yet, but there's a new IDE in town, open source and backed by a couple of heavy hitters in the coding industry.

Microsoft Heeds Developer Feedback in New Visual Studio 2017 Preview

According to Microsoft, community developers are driving changes to its flagship IDE, including a host of improvements in the just-announced second preview of Visual Studio 2017 Version 15.4.

Visual Basic Support Coming to Open Source Windows Template Studio

In announcing Windows Template Studio 1.3, Microsoft hinted that work has begun to support Visual Basic programming in the wizard-driven dev tool for Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps.

What's New with Python in the Latest Visual Studio Preview

Just before Stack Overflow deemed it the "fastest-growing major programming language," Microsoft conveniently detailed updates for using Python in the new Visual Studio 15.4 Preview 1.

After Getting an Integrated Terminal, Will VS Code Get an Integrated Browser? Uh, No

Microsoft suggests using an extension or judiciously rearranging windows.

Visual Studio Code 1.16 Eases Code Refactoring, Picking Colors, More

Visual Studio Code's monthly release cadence continues to stream a new supply of goodies in each iteration, with the latest one featuring better code refactoring, a more versatile color picker, automatic tag closing and much more.

Mono Linker Tool Now Reduces Size of .NET Core Apps

Microsoft is building on top of the Mono platform's handy Linker tool to turn its code-shrinking powers loose on reducing the size of .NET Core apps.

Free eBook on Xamarin.Forms Enterprise App Patterns Published

Microsoft has been publishing a series of free eBooks and other guidance about .NET application architecture best practices, with the latest focusing on Xamarin.Forms patterns.

New Open Source TypeScript 2.5 Improves Code Refactoring, More

Microsoft said new code refactorings highlight the latest open source TypeScript 2.5 release, along with a host of other improvements.

Skype Previews New Coding Interview Feature

Microsoft is previewing new functionality for its Skype communications app that lets employers conduct technical/coding interviews with prospective developer job candidates without having to switch among different apps.

Hands-On Labs Help Developers Try Out New Visual Studio for Mac 7.2 Alpha Preview

Visual Studio for Mac, building upon the previous Xamarin Studio IDE acquired by Microsoft, is out in a new preview along with hands-on labs that can help developers try out its new features.

UWP Community Toolkit 2.0 Released, for Aiding Windows 10 App Development

Microsoft released version 2.0 of the UWP Community Toolkit, a package of helper functions, controls and services for simplifying common tasks involved in coding Universal Windows Apps for Windows 10.

Clippy the Office Assistant Reborn as Visual Studio Extension

Developer Eros Fratini has resurrected Clippy, the infamous cartoon paperclip that served as an assistant for users of the Office productivity software suite many years ago.

Angular Q&A: Components, Getting-Started Tips (and that 'Total Rewrite' Thing)

Noted database expert and author Ted Neward discusses his favorite features of Angular and explains how to get started with the popular platform for building Web, mobile Web, mobile native and desktop apps.

JetBrains Upgrades ReSharper Ultimate Tools, Adds .NET Core 2.0 Support

JetBrains is out with the year's second upgrade to its ReSharper Ultimate suite of tools for enhancing .NET development, featuring the popular ReSharper offering for code refactoring.

New Visual Studio Code Icons Unveiled

Risking the wrath of recalcitrant developers, Microsoft is changing the icon scheme for its Visual Studio Code editor.

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