Well, MSDN will be busy today… Visual Studio 2008 Beta 1, Team Foundation Server 2008 Beta 1 and .NET Framework Beta 1 have all been released today. This is grate news as I have been using the Beta for about as long as it has been available and all those applications I have waiting in the wings can now go live :), Or at least get into the final phase of development.
Can you imaging a better data capture application than one that builds itself (ASP.NET Dynamic Data) or even a web service to expose your database to an application that you just tell it which bits of data you want to use (ADO.NET Data Services). How about the ability to create a conceptual model of your data from multiple databases that hides your application from database schema changes (ADO.NET Entity Framework). That's just in the ASP.NET and ADO bags, not to mention the WPF performance improvements and the ClickOnce improved install process as well as being able to customise said process and the ability to deploy application with a cut down version of the .NET Framework that has a smaller footprint (20mb as opposed to 60mb) and have the full framework streamed down over time with BITS.
The .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 and Visual Studio 2008 SP1 has improvements and optimisation's across the board…A good day for developers and users alike.
There are tones of performance and minor improvements in Team Foundation Server as well…