Visual Studio 2015 Update 2 | Hacker News Reader

Visual Studio 2015 Update 2

visualstudio.com

178 pointsT-A54 comments

I hope I'm not reading this wrong... But is the new "C# Interactive Window" a C# REPL? That would be amazing.

It's actually been there since Update 1.

Thanks for this.

It was a welcome surprise to go to View->Other Windows and see this. I'll have to update soon to the new version to see the additional features it's gained.

Yes, but I've found it to be lacking usability-wise (e.g. it doesn't load the current project's dependencies, and it doesn't provide an easy way to load in dependencies from your project [someone please correct me if I'm wrong!]).

That's what Update 2 brings: "You can now initialize the C# Interactive Window with a project's context, allowing immediate access to types inside that project."

That is great news, thanks!

Is this any different from the Immediate Window in Visual Studio?

Immediate is AFAIK a limited subset available during debugging. C# Interactive is what F# has had for years (F# Interactive), and even Mono has had something like this for a while. You can enter snippets of C# and eval like a real REPL. Update 2 brings project context support so you can just open the REPL and do stuff like var x = new MyType().

You might want to check out a web based C# REPL: http://csharppad.com

Yep! This started life as the PTVS (Python Tools for VS) REPL and now Python, Node.js, C#, R, ... are using it.

scriptcs (http://scriptcs.net/) is another awesome REPL for C# that's built on top of Roslyn. I've found it to be extremely flexible and handy for writing quick tools.

Anyone have worked with Cordova? What are the uses cases where I could envision using it (pros, cons)? As I understand it's used to package a Web App into a Mobile specific bundle for deployment?

I used it to repackage an asp mvc angular app onto mobile. Fairly poor experience, like problems with starting up the emulators, etc. You end up writing a lot of gulp scripts to do the conversion - all manual work. I had to convert from old style csproj app onto Cordova that uses project.json scheme - quite tedious if you ask me.

How was the performance? Was it close to Native for your users?

The app was fairly simple, we had glitches but they were related to angular and not Visual Studio specific

I've been using Visual Studio 2015 Update 1 for Phonegap and Ionic apps and working on files is noticeably slower than other project types such as asp.net mvc. I just end up using the cli to perform tasks but I'm hoping this update along with the git improvements make things better.

So it looks like they still won't be supporting ES6 module imports, which just screws everything up when trying to do anything with js. Sad to see.

It looks like they're working on it and it's supported in the latest Node Tools releases? https://github.com/Microsoft/nodejstools/issues/77#issuecomm...

Specifically:

"This feature is currently available if you switch on the new ES6 IntelliSense Preview mode, available in the latest NTVS release. "

I think that is just for the NTVS plugin but VS itself still does not: https://visualstudio.uservoice.com/forums/121579-visual-stud...

The release notes point to a switch to "Salsa" for JS intellisense. Salsa is based on the TS intellisense service (it is run by the TS intellisense service) and the same one used these days by VS Code. At least what I've seen in VS Code, Salsa seems fine with ES2015 import syntax and intellisense. (That said, almost all of my code is TS, so I'm not sure I've hit any specific use cases you are particularly looking for support in.)

Did the update today and gave it a try but it looks like it still complains on the imports, but JSX parsing did still improve at least!

Is an ISO for offline update available at all? Microsoft surely makes it hard to find.

There appears to be one available on the MSDN downloads page at least.

Thanks, but I don't have MSDN :(.

Oh... you silly peasants...

Then again... I only have an MSDN subscription because my previous job STILL hasn't removed me from their lists. Not that I expect them to with the clowns they replaced my previous company with.

Very nice perk to still have.

I've always wondered what the subscription 'perks' were? All the docs are online, and there are a ton of tuts ... what am I missing?

free keys for nearly every MS product

Free = $2,999 per year...

That's why we have Action Pack, which is 360 EUR/year.

Supposedly it should contain Visual Studio too, but I cannot see the isos on the download page. R Studio for Redhat and SuSE, on the other hand... ;)

* "Free" keys * ISO's * Azure allowance per month * Pluralsight videos (not all, 45 hours worth) * Microsoft E-Learning * MSDN Magazine

Other odds and ends...

Visual Studio Enterprise

So nice.

Scoop up those ISOs while you still can! This happened to me too, but they'll get to yours eventually.

And even more importantly, claim your product keys! And then download those puppies with the Export to XML option in the My Product Keys page.

Note that you can only claim a limited number of keys per day. So don't get carried away claiming all five keys on one product, then all five on the next, etc. You will soon hit your daily limit. Spread your claims out among the products you think you might need until you run out, and then come back the next day to claim more.

You can reach it at https://www.visualstudio.com/downloads/download-visual-studi...

Use the menu on the left of the page and select ISO.

Oh, great, they updated the installation isos, thanks.

They released an ISO for Update 1, so chances are there will be one for Update 2.

In the meantime, you can download the online installer [1] and run

    vs2015.2.exe /Layout

to launch the downloader, which should create a folder which contains everything that you would find on the update ISO. (EDIT: This seems to result in a 4.53 GiB download, so definitely smaller than the 6.95 GiB full install ISO.)

[1]: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=691129

Have they fixed the bug that causes it to hang when updating a project file from outside of VS? (e.g. `git checkout x` from the command line)?

Do you use ReSharper? Because in large solutions it's usually that which causes the hang on project changes for me.

Yeah, this happens to me as well. ReSharper caches a lot of stuff, and with the size of our solution, the memory consumption on VS is crazy. This usually leads to a forced restart so that VS acts normally again.

I don't, but here's the issue on connect, for whatever that's worth. Quite a number of repros: https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/Feedback/Details/...

I use Resharper and don't get this issue (didn't get it on Update 1 either) - if the project file is updated, VS will tell me that the project file is updated and ask me if I want to reload the project.

They don't seem to have fixed much at all, it's still a total dog - massive memory hog, lots of random lock-ups and crashes. The classic is the pop-up telling you it's working on showing you a pop-up. And even introduced new issues (like including files from gitignore in the change-sets). I'm this close (holding fingers very close together) to just dumping the thing for a text editor. VS2015 has been a total car crash as far as I'm concerned.

Takes an age to install for a mere 6 GB (minimal).

This version actually installed a lot faster than the last update for me. Still kinda slow but not half-a-day slow.

Where you able to find the SHA1 for the ISO download?

No, I just did the online update.

Just installed the VS15 Preview in 5 minutes...very nice!

Note that there's a bug with C++ projects that causes update 2 to crash repeatedly. Microsoft has acknowledged it and says they're working on a fix. It has something to do with accessing managed code.

I'm a little sad to read very little improvement in the raging dumpster-fire that is SQL Server Data Tools.

Looks like the update is for both 2015 Enterprise and 2015 Community.

Excellent. Need to update the SHA1 values.

SHA1 values from MSDN. I haven't checked these personally, but I imagine this is automated on there.

TFS Update 2: 520461A14118C744358A18662C49E08BD35EA0E8

VS Update 2: 269FA5FE823263718DA056D465BF8EB19C87ECD8

VS Pro with Update 2: 68FA2C4406D681FCBB0772D96233540FF194E938

VS Ent with Update 2: C966B61E4E35210C7C186D4EC1A0450B0A0FBF9C

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