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What's new in the next release of SQL-Server and Visual Studio.NET
The next release of SQL Server and Visual Studio.Net are code named as Yukon and Whidbey, this paper will briefly tour the new features available in Yukon and Whidbey.
“Yukon" next generation database
The release of the next version of SQL Server, code-named Yukon, is expected in 2004. The Yukon release will include the .NET Common Language Runtime (CLR), which will allow developers to write database objects such as stored procedures and triggers in .NET-compatible languages such as C# and VB.Net, C++.NET, J#. Microsoft representatives consider this release to be as crucial to the company's plans as Yukon will be a database server upgrade and also a platform on which Microsoft will base future versions of Active Directory (AD), Microsoft Exchange Server, Windows file system, and other products.
Yukon is still a long way off, but it is not too early to start preparing for the dramatic changes the new SQL Server release will bring—especially those associated with Microsoft's .NET Common Language Runtime (CLR).
Key features of Yukon:-
Programmability
Due to a deep integration with the Microsoft Windows .NET Framework and Common Language Runtime (CLR), Yukon will be a significant release and milestone for developers, who for the first time, will be able to use languages other than T-SQL to program the database, as .NET is language independent and Yukon has inbuilt .NET with its database engine.
Yukon (SQL Server .NET) is designed to develop language independent solutions based on Microsoft.NET. This is why; in Yukon, other languages will work as well. In the past, developers would often have to master several languages to be ready for a variety of challenges. For example, a Web developer might use VBScript or JavaScript to code server-side scripts, Visual Basic (VB) or C# to write data access components, and T-SQL to write SQL Server stored procedures.
With Yukon, developers can write stored procedures in any CLR language, including C# and VB.Net, C++.NET, J#. Using this capability, developers can create new user-defined data types and expose stored procedures as Web services natively, a feature that effectively eliminates the need for a middle tier, so that Web and desktop applications can target the database server directly.
In summary, developers can use the .NET Common Language Runtime (CLR) built into the database engine of Yukon to write .NET-connected software.
.NET Language support
While developing a solution within Yukon, it is no longer important which .NET language you use because Yukon has the .NET common language runtime built in. In essence, it is a matter of personal choice which language a developer chooses to use. Developers will have the freedom to program stored procedures in any given language, supported by .NET.
Business Intelligence
Data mining has been a significant feature of SQL Server 2000, and Yukon will enhance this capability with end-to-end data warehousing and business intelligence capabilities. These enhancements will regard the solving of lifecycle issues and rounding out the platform.
Additionally, Yukon will form the basis of a generational platform with Windows 2003, it will be accompanied by a major upgrade to Visual Studio .NET 2003, which will include features that specifically target Yukon's new capabilities. Fundamentally, one data store to rule them all.
When is it going to be released
It is going to be available in the second half of 2004. Public beta, would be released in the first half of calendar year. Apparently, Microsoft is pushing that back into the second half of calendar year 2004, to get the QA cycle right and more work around embedding the Common Language Runtime, which is the super exciting new feature.
Yukon is going to be a major platform that will be accompanied by a new Visual Studio (VS) release, and its new data store will form the basis for the Longhorn WinFS file system extension, the Blackcomb AD, the Exchange Server Kodiak release, and various other storage-related products coming down the road.
"Whidbey" (2004) Future Development tool for Yukon
In 2004 Microsoft will release the next generation of the Visual Studio suite (code name Whidbey). This product will take developer productivity and built-in community support to new heights. Features surfaced through language innovation, improvements to the .NET Framework, and extended support for enterprise development will be manifested throughout the Whidbey IDE.
Whidbey will deliver deep integration and support for SQL Server code name Yukon. Just as Windows Server 2003 integrates the .NET Framework into its release. Whidbey will not only enable developers to write stored procedures in Visual Basic and C#, but will also deliver advancements that reduce code and effort when developing data-centric applications.
In addition to extensive improvements in IDE productivity and increased support for Yukon. Key focus areas for the Whidbey release include:
- Programming Languages. In this upcoming release, Microsoft will build on the distinctive characteristics of each of the four languages delivered as part of Visual Studio (Visual Basic, Visual C++, C#, and J#). This language innovation will enrich the programming experience for each of the respective developer communities without sacrificing existing language functionality and interoperability.
- The .NET Framework. Whidbey will introduce enhancements across the .NET Framework class libraries. These include more powerful and agile Windows Forms-based client development, refined ASP.NET Web application development, more productive ADO.NET data access, support for the latest Web services standards, and expanded functionality for device-based development.
Key features of Whidbey's Programming Languages
Visual Basic
The Whidbey release of Visual Basic will radically improve developer productivity while continuing to provide full access to the .NET Framework. Key design goals for Visual Basic Whidbey include: reducing the amount of code required to accomplish common tasks, dramatically reducing programming errors at design time, simplifying data access, improving the RAD debugging experience, and delivering high-end features for advanced Visual Basic developers.
1. Visual Basic Whidbey will reduce the coding associated with many common programming tasks by more than 50 percent. New runtime objects and methods will provide direct access to the most frequently used functionality within the .NET Framework. In addition, code editor enhancements will automatically author common programming tasks, enabling developers to "fill in the blanks" and focus on solving the problem at hand rather than on language syntax.
2. Visual Basic Whidbey code editor will dramatically reduce programming errors for both beginner and advanced developers at design-time. Providing similar functionality to the Microsoft Word spelling and grammar check, Visual Basic Whidbey will suggest corrections for common syntax errors. In addition, the compiler will warn developers of semantically incorrect code that would otherwise cause runtime errors, such attempts to access code elements prior to initialization.
3. Visual Basic Whidbey will vastly enhance the experience of manipulating and retrieving data. Simplified data source design from within the development environment will be available for local and remote data, business objects, and remote XML Web services. Whidbey will also reintroduce the ability to create data-bound applications without writing a single line of code. Ideal for many common data access scenarios, this feature will enable developers to automatically generate customizable, data-bound UI when a table or columns are dragged and dropped onto a form.
4. Whidbey will deliver a debugging experience that is both powerful and familiar to the Visual Basic developer. With the reintroduction of Edit and Continue, developers will be able to modify and test source code without stopping and restarting the debugging session. This iterative development and debug cycle, combined with advanced error correction and code analysis in break mode, provide developers using Visual Basic with the most powerful and flexible debugging experience ever.
Finally, for the more advanced Visual Basic developer, language enhancements include support for operator overloading, unsigned data types, inline XML-based code documentation, and partial types. In addition, developers using Visual Basic will have access to a type-safe, high-performance, compile time-verified version of generics that promote code reuse across a variety of data types.
Like its predecessors, Visual Basic Whidbey will focus on enabling developers to rapidly develop applications that span all tiers. Planned enhancements across the debugger, visual designers, code editor, and language will greatly enhance productivity, enabling developers to build robust, elegant applications faster and deploy them across the Web, a business group, or an enterprise.
Visual C++
In Whidbey, Visual C++ will command even more power than its admired predecessors for systems and application developers targeting both Windows and the .NET Framework. Enhancements are planned across all areas of the product, including the compiler, development environment, language, and core libraries such as Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC) and the C-Runtime (CRT). Moreover, Visual C++ Whidbey will enable developers to build native C++ applications for mobile devices directly within the Visual Studio Whidbey IDE.
One of many enhancements planned for the C++ compiler in Whidbey is Profile Guided Optimizations (POGO). POGO technology allows the compiler to instrument an application and collect information on how the application is used. This information enables Visual C++ to further optimize code based on real-world usage patterns. Pre-release versions of 64-bit POGO technology currently ship in the freely downloadable Platform SDK (PSDK); in Whidbey, this technology will be extended to the core 32-bit compiler.
With the initial release of the CLR, Visual C++ offered Managed Extensions, enabling developers to explicitly take advantage of the full capabilities of the .NET Framework. In the Whidbey release, Visual C++ will offer developers C++-specific constructs to access Whidbey CLR capabilities, including generics. Other refinements to Managed Extensions will simplify the development of C++ code that targets the CLR.
Visual C++ Whidbey will also provide enhancements to the core C++ libraries. Visual C++ has historically included several world-class libraries upon which applications have been built - most notable among these is the Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC). In Visual C++ Whidbey, MFC will be enhanced with a variety of new features including full support for Windows Fusion, a technology to help alleviate problems associated with DLL deployment for native applications. Other enhancements include the ability to easily extend MFC-based applications to support the .NET Framework.
Continuing its hallmark of harnessing the full capabilities and performance of the underlying platform, Visual C++ Whidbey will offer language constructs, as well as both native and managed class library enhancements to successfully build the full range of business solutions. Developers will use these enhancements to extend the functionality of current application investments and to begin new software development endeavors requiring the full power and capability of C++.
Visual C#
In Whidbey, Microsoft plans to infuse C# with a variety of features from a broad spectrum of research and industry languages. These language features will provide C# developers with "code-focused RAD," delivering productivity for creating business frameworks and reusable object-oriented components. Included among these language features are generics, iterators, anonymous methods, and partial types.
As projects increase in sophistication, programmers often need a means to better reuse and customize existing component-based software. To achieve such a high level of code reuse, programmers typically employ a feature called generics. In Whidbey, the CLR will include a type-safe, high-performance, compile time-verified version of generics which differs slightly in syntax and greatly in implementation from templates as found in C++ and generics as proposed for the Java language. Generics allow developers to author, test, and deploy code once and reuse that code for a variety of different data types with negligible performance impact to applications. The CLR implementation of generics will also reduce code bloat when compared to other strongly-typed implementations, leading to more readable and maintainable source.
Microsoft currently plans to support both the creation and consumption of generics in C#.
In addition to improving code reuse, Visual C# will eliminate some chaotic chores often associated with coding, such as implementing enumerator patterns. Iterators are constructs that dramatically simplify this task. Based on similar features in research languages such as CLU, Sather, and Icon, these constructs make it easy for types to declare how the foreach statement will iterate over their elements. Rather than having to create the classes and build the state machine for manually implementing the enumerator pattern, the C# compiler will translate iterator code into the appropriate classes automatically.
Anonymous methods are practical language constructs that will allow C# programmers in the Whidbey timeframe to create code blocks that can be encapsulated in a delegate and executed at a later time. They are based on a language concept called a lambda function and are similar to those found in Lisp and Python. Anonymous methods are defined dynamically at the point where they are used, rather then being pre-defined as a named method of a specific class. Anonymous methods make some types of operations more convenient, particularly when the method signature or body needs to be changed at run time.
Finally, Whidbey will enable C# developers to split types consisting of a large amount of source code into several different source files using partial types. Providing easier development and code maintenance, partial types enable developers to separate machine-generated and user-written parts of a type in order to more effectively supplement or modify code generated by a tool.
With its focus on language innovation, C# will remain the language of choice for many framework designers and software architects. By supplementing its modern syntax with component-oriented features and modern language constructs, C# will continue to deliver on the concept of code-focused RAD.
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