I love it! The refactoring support is incredible. I didn't think syntax highlighting could be improved, but it has, and IntelliSense is pretty mature. I like the inbuilt Visio, too, the ability to automatically have class diagrams from your code.

I was going to ask in the ASP.NET section, but I think a lot of people actually use it for other than ASP?

I have to admit that I'm not very fond of it...
I sometimes get back in my code, changing type of a variable, or anything, and if I use intellisense, the end of the line it cut off. Pretty annoying.
As for the validation of the intellisense (what with that word !? When does the "auto-complete" feature became "intellisense" ???) , I'm too used to have the enter key that validate the choice, not that it create a line break.

The indentation too is confusing, I find.
The fact that if you leave an empty line, when you get back to it, it's not indented anymore.
And that it re-indent it all alone after you typed something... Well, I find it confusing...

But I have to confess, I almost never use it ( It have been 2 times in 3 month ). Only when I have to step into a scalar function for SQL server, but that's all.
Even when I had to create an C# class to do a Hibernate mapping, I resorted to Python to generate the code from XML.
It was faster than typing it, and I could not understand how to use the code generator I was left with...
Too bad that my enterprise enforce vb.net only. I really don't like that language. And python is so sexy...

Edit:
Silly me.... I just saw now that I was talking about VS 2005.
I don't know about 2008 in fact. Sorry for the rant.

No problem, Tripy! But do you know most of what you've described is customizable? Whenever I work with a new installation, I always change the indentation, new lines, and the like, so that the IDE crafts code to my liking.

I plead guilty !
You know, I'm one lazy guy. That kind of lazy that prefer spend 10 hours on a small program to realize what I could do in 1 hour by hand, just to not have to do it again later...

The same to VS. As I just had to debug a function, I did that, and exited after 10 minutes. Just thinking that it was reacting strangely.
As 99% of my work is in the server management studio, it's not a big deal.

Interestingly, SQL Server Management Studio is just a different skin for Visual Studio. Have you used it (instead of VS "proper") to work on SSIS packages? If not, give it a try. I was shocked to learn it's basically the same thing. It doesn't show you the XML like a text editor - it's the same drive by mouse interface.

Anyway, since you brought it up - do you use RedGate? I had to install it for a project, and they've wanted me to keep it assuming auto complete will make me more productive. But I hate it!! The auto complete doesn't go away like it's supposed to, and worse, it messes up parans. When I type ( it usually fills in a ), but then when I try to nest them, like a function call as a parameter to another function, the only way I can properly close them sometimes is to copy and paste closing parans! I've been trying to figure out how to turn that particular feature off, but not having any luck.

Sorry John, I don't know what is an SSIS package...
Cannot answer you on that one.

But yes, my enterprise has a redGate license for every member of the DBA team.
It's far from perfect, true, and sometimes, I ask it to re-index the schema 3 times in a row for him to see my function or SP, but it's better than nothing.

I work in a German region now, though I'm a native french speaker.
I know basis of German, but when I see SP named "speKdnAdrInfoLoadByKdnBasisAndAdrZweckCode" which means "public stored procedure that load customer info from a customer basic id and an zip code" shortened in German, I'm happy of what redgate tools bring me as a facility.
I would need a printed schema all the time otherwise.
In fact, I use redGate AND a printed schema all the times.

And you should see some column names. I constantly have google translate open.
Hopefully, every DBA members speak English, and some speaks pretty well French too. But it's a bit irritating.
The heritage when you have a 15 years old app with several chiefs that have suceeded.

Thierry, have you ever worked on an SAP backend?

I haven't used VS 08. I haven't even used beyond .net 2!

Thierry, have you ever worked on an SAP backend?

Maybe... I did my initial formation as a technician in an SAP consulting firm.
I was not destining myself to programming at that time, so I didn't made much (I was in the IT team) but I did some ABAP (it was ABAP 4, I think) at the time.
I do not remember details, but it did not let me a so great memories...

Are you working on SAP, Forrest ?

Do you use the right click, then "show definition" item in in the context menu to trace back variables?

I just learned about "historical debugging" which is new. And exciting! When an exception is hit, you can walk backwards now through your code. With each line, all the side effects can be reversed, all the variables "put back" to their old values, and then you can play forward and see that exception be hit, and much more quickly come to the line or lines with the problem. No having to restart your app and guess where to set break points.

No, In VS, I right click and choose "step into", provide the paramteres and then go step by step.
What I miss is that you can just make a "step over", not a "step into".
But it's already better than nothing.

I don't know why they took away the toolbar buttons for step over vs step into!!?! Much swearing has happened over that! You can still do it with the F8 and F10 keys, tho.

EDIT - Woot! 4,444 posts!

You can still do it with the F8 and F10 keys, tho.

Thanks for the clarification !

VS 2008 Is one of the best done IDE ive used..
Im a little annoyed that it shpped with some of the bugs it did though, so SP1 will be a welcome addition. I really like the way that MS has been doing the Service pack rollouts.. they fix bugs, AND add functionality... just like a software company should do.. release early and often and provide value.. And they are really doing that with VS2008.

Some things dont live up to the hype yet though... Team Edition Architect for example.. dont buy into it.. its not there yet. Some of the DSL tools that come out of the Patterns and Practices groups are okay.. but even they are not "there" yet.

Some MUST haves.. include... Enterprise LIbrary 4.0 ... just AWESOME!

and if you use Oracle (like I *cough* am forced to do) the latest and greatest ODP.NET plugins are also SUPERB! (downloaded from ODN)

If you are into controls, scrap infragistics and component 1 and go with Telerik.. they seem to have some secret sweet deal that keeps their releases in lock step with the Visual Studio updates... OKAY by me,, the controls are just wicked awesome..

Actually.. VS 2008 Pro and up also has integrated Unit testing.. I mean really, there are sooooo many features of this IDE is pretty insane. I like it as much as I like Eclipse for Java.

I like it so much that I use Eclipse instead ;-)