Since the time Integrated Development became reliable in Visual Studio, it evolved into a necessity in application development. Coding today without Integrated Development especially where 2 or more developers are involved is almost unthinkable.
We all know that any type of change is inevitable in a competitive technology market, and we always hope for changes that make our lives better. Microsoft being one of the leaders in technology is constantly pushing for changes. As technology geeks, we always look forward to prying deeper into these changes whenever they become available. So, I wasn’t surprised at all to see some changes in Visual Studio 2005; however, some of the changes in relation to Integrated Development have made me wonder… “Why”!!!
So far, I have encountered a few items which I thought is somewhat odd. I have listed them as follows:
Change in Default Source Control Environment Option:
Visual Studio 2003
- For Source Control, “Visual SourceSafe” is selected by default for “Use settings” drop-down.
- This automatically selected “Prompt for check out” from “when checked-in items are edited” and “when checked in items are saved” drop-downs.
- If I attempted to change either the “when checked-in items are edited” or the “when checked in items are saved” drop-down, the “Use settings” drop-down would automatically change to “Custom”
- “Prompt for check out” in the “when checked-in items are edited” drop-down ensured that the user is prompted to check out a file whenever a change to the file was made.
- Similarly, “Prompt for check out” in the “when checked-in items are saved” drop-down ensured that the user is prompted to check out a file whenever an attempt to save a file was made.
- I personally found the annoying pop-up to be convenient for any accidental edits or saves.
See the screenshots below:
Visual Studio 2005
- “Visual SourceSafe” is selected by default for “Source Control Environment Settings” drop-down.
- This automatically selected “Check out automatically” from the “On Save” and the “On Edit” drop-downs of “Checked-n item behavior” section.
- If I attempted to change either the “On Save” or the “On Edit” drop-down, the “Source Control Environment Settings” drop-down would automatically switch to “Custom”
- These checks out files without any type of warning.
See the screenshots below:
Change in Reference Paths doesn’t reflect in VSS:
- At first I create a new project and added it to VSS.
- I make sure that my solution is bound to VSS, hence enabling me Integrated Development.
- Now I add a reference path by opening the project properties and selecting the “Reference Path” tab.
- This creates a file with “.user” extension inside the project folder; however, this file doesn’t get checked into VSS.
- I am not certain if it was done on purpose; but I would think it needs to go into VSS. Then again if it’s specific to a user, it might be appropriate for the file to live outside of VSS.