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It’s that time of the year to reflect, analyze and compile our lives into a series of Top 10 lists.  As with every other Top 10 list, the items on this list and their order are highly subjective.  For example, some companies may not care about future versions of .NET — version 2.0 works just fine, thank you.  Other companies may need to develop a web application, so Silverlight 2.0 is their top story of the year.  So please comment below with your Top 10 List.

Following are the Top 10 stories in 2008 about software development with the Microsoft .NET Framework:

1.  Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 Announced

The biggest .NET buzz of 2008 came from the announcement of the next generation of the .NET Framework, C#, Visual Basic and Visual Studio, all to be released in 2009.  New features include modeling tools integrated into the Visual Studio IDE, support for UML and Domain Specific Languages, improved testing tools, substantial improvements in collaboration capabilities, ability to link work items with code and models, and workflow-based builds.  There are also significant improvements in C# 4.0 including co-variance and contra-variance, named and optional parameters, dynamic variables and programming features, and improved COM Interoperability.  (more)

2.  Global Economic Recession

This news story will likely appear in most Top 10 News lists for 2008.  The global economic recession touches just about everything in our lives.  For software developers and most workers, this deep and lengthy recession may result in company closings, layoffs, stagnant or reduced salaries, reduced company spending on equipment and developer training, and a significant drop in venture capital.  This means more stress on developers and software entrepreneurs.  And perhaps more opportunity for innovation.

3.  .NET Framework Source Code Available

Microsoft released the source code for the .NET Framework under its Reference License.  This makes it much easier to debug .NET framework issues since you can dive down into the .NET code.  The “read-only” license enables developers to inspect the source code for reference and debugging, but not modify or distribute the code.  (more here and here)

4.  Visual Studio 2008 and .NET 3.5 Service Pack 1 Released

Microsoft released Service Pack 1 for Visual Studio 2008 and .NET 3.5.  This update patched numerous bugs, improved performance, and even added a few new features.  One of the best new features was a new .NET Framework installation optimized for client applications.  The optimized download is less than 28 MB, compared to the original 200 MB download.  (more here and here) 

5.  ASP.NET MVC Framework Introduced

MVC is a design methodology that divides an application’s implementation into three component roles: models, views, and controllers.  ASP.NET MVC enables developers to build Model View Controller (MVC) applications with the ASP.NET framework and is an alternative, not a replacement, for ASP.NET Web Forms.  ASP.NET MVC offers the following benefits: clear separation of concerns, support for Test-Driven Development (TDD), fine-grained control over HTML and JavaScript, and intuitive URLs.  ASP.NET MVC is in the public preview stage and will be released to production next year.  (more here, here and here)

6.  jQuery Ships with Visual Studio

jQuery is a lightweight open source JavaScript library (only 15kb in size) that has become one of the most popular libraries on the Web.  jQuery enables developers to efficiently find and manipulate HTML elements.  Microsoft will be shipping jQuery with Visual Studio going forward.  Microsoft will distribute the jQuery JavaScript library as-is, and will not be forking or changing the source from the main jQuery branch.  Visual Studio will include jQuery Intellisense and help files.  (more)

7.  Silverlight 2.0 Released

Silverlight 2 is a cross-platform browser plugin that enables rich media experiences and .NET Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) within the browser.  Silverlight 2 is small in size (4.6MB) and takes only 4-10 seconds to install.  Silverlight does not require the .NET Framework to be installed on a computer to run.  Developers can write Silverlight applications using any .NET language (including VB, C#, JavaScript, IronPython and IronRuby).  (more)

8.  Mono 2.0 Released

Mono is an open source implementation of the .NET Framework for Linux, Windows, MacOS and other operating systems.  Mono v2.0 was released with many significant new features and improvements.  The Mono project extends the reach of .NET to other non-Microsoft platforms such as Linux and Mac.  Mono shines the open-source light on the closed-source world of Microsoft technologies.  (more)

9.  LINQ to SQL Discontinued

The Microsoft ADO.NET team has discontinued the LINQ to SQL project.  Many developers believe this is a mistake, “spitting in the face” of everyone who invested time and money in LINQ-SQL, leaving developers with a costly porting process.  (more here and here)

10.  Entity Framework Released and Demonized

The ADO.NET Entity Framework provides strongly typed LINQ data access in relational databases.  Entity Framework makes it easier for developers to work with their data because it moves the data model up from the physical structure of relational tables to a conceptual model that accurately reflects common business objects.  Yet Entity Framework was quickly demonized as the “Albatross of ALT.NET,” especially by NHibernate fans.  (more here, here and here)

Bonus #11.  New .NET Logo

The .NET development team at Microsoft has created a new .NET logo.  Their goal was to create a logo “that was in sync with the key values that we want .NET to stand for: consistency, robustness and great user experiences.”  (more)

Article published on December 19, 2008

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