Chapter 2. Getting Started with Visual Studio 2008

Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 is an extremely versatile and powerful environment for developing .NET applications. This chapter explores some of the commonly used features that you will likely use in the process of your development work. Because there are literally hundreds and thousands of ways in which you can customize Visual Studio 2008, this chapter can only explore, for the most part, the default settings in Visual Studio. While some of the topics covered are discussed in more detail in subsequent chapters, you'll want to breeze through this chapter to get an overall look at this version of Visual Studio.

This chapter examines:

  • Components of the IDE (Menu bar, Toolbar, Toolbox, and so on)

  • Code and Text Editor and the features it contains, including IntelliSense and Refactoring support

  • Using the debugger in Visual Studio 2008

  • Unit testing in Visual Studio 2008

Visual Studio 2008 Overview

In early 2008, Microsoft released the latest version of Visual Studio — Visual Studio 2008. With it comes a plethora of editions designed for the different types of developers in mind:

  • Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition

  • Visual Basic 2008 Express Edition

  • Visual C# 2008 Express Edition

  • Visual C++ 2008 Express Edition

  • Visual Studio 2008 Standard Edition

  • Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition

  • Visual Studio 2008 Team System 2008 Architecture Edition

  • Visual Studio 2008 Team System 2008 Database Edition

  • Visual Studio 2008 Team System 2008 Development Edition ...

Get C# 2008 Programmer's Reference now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.