CruiseControl.Net and .NET
As many people are aware, CruiseControl.Net is written in C# 2.0, and the primary development environment is Visual Studio 2005 (and those tools that can handle VS2005).
Last year, Microsoft finally released their next version of Visual Studio – Visual Studio 2008. This now allows targeting multiple different frameworks within one IDE. The targeted frameworks are: .NET 2.0, .NET 3.0 and .NET 3.5. And while they are on a roll, they are planning on releasing Visual Studio 2010 next year, along with .NET 4.0.
However, Microsoft have broken backwards compatability – you cannot open a VS2008 solution in VS2005 (you can do the opposite, but it converts it to VS2008 format!) Based on their track record I wouldn’t be surprised if they do the same with VS2010.
This raises the question of what IDE should be the primary development environment for CruiseControl.Net?
With VS2005, we stay as we are now – no changes, no problems.
With VS2008, we need to convert the solution, plus make sure the build process still works. However CruiseControl.Net will still target .NET 2.0 (until Mono handles .NET 3.0 and 3.5), although we could start adding optional assemblies that use .NET 3.0/3.5 functionality.
With VS2010, we’d have to wait and see what it is like, and then see the rate of adoption (especially among the developers). But we’d still continue to target .NET 2.0.
What do you think we should do?
I will leave this poll open for a couple of weeks, and then post the results. Please let us know what you think.
Not really a comment – but just a suggestion – remove those balloon pop-ups that come up each time I hover over a damn link! It’s so irritating I’m considering never coming back to this site – which is a pity because there’s some valuable info here. I have a fast machine with 10MBit internet link and it *still* hogs the machine when you go over it.
Sorry for the rant but this is too much to handle.
I agree – they are annoying. They appear to be one of the “features” of WordPress that is turned on by default.
I’ve had a play around with the settings and hopefully (!) I’ve managed to turn them off.
“However, Microsoft have broken backwards compatability – you cannot open a VS2008 solution in VS2005″
Microsoft has not broken backwards compatibility – 2008 can open 2005. This IS backwards compatibility . You are describing forward compatibility , which is something different. Can you really expect their products to be forward compatible ? They were able to do it with Office XP (with a free download, you can open up Office 2007 docx, pptx, etc), but I think this is asking a lot for VS2005. Visual Studio 2005 knows nothing about the newer frameworks.
Hi Scott,
You’re partially right – you “can” open a VS2005 solution in VS2008, but it converts it to VS2008 format! So this isn’t really opening a VS2005 solution – if it was we could open the solution in VS2005 again afterwards.
Craig
I would rather see going to VS2008 now rather than waiting for 2010, as that actually means “waiting for 2010 SP1, etc.” which is quite a while out.
The improvements in VS2008 + C#3.0 (even against .NET 2.0) are well worth it IMO.