(Front End)

Microsoft Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) from Microsoft. It is used to develop console and graphical user interface applications along with Windows Forms applications, web sites, web applications, and web services in both native code together with managed code for all platforms supported by Microsoft Windows, Windows Mobile, Windows CE, .NET Framework, .NET Compact Framework and Microsoft Silver light.

Features
Code editor
Visual Studio, like any other IDE, includes a code editor that supports syntax highlighting and code completion using IntelliSense for not only variables, functions and methods but also language constructs like loops and queries. IntelliSense is supported for the included languages, as well as for XML and for Cascading Style Sheets and JavaScript when developing web sites and web applications. Auto complete suggestions are popped up in a modeless list box, overlaid on top of the code editor. In Visual Studio 2008 onwards, it can be made temporarily semitransparent to see the code obstructed by it. The code editor is used for all supported languages. The Visual Studio code editor also supports setting bookmarks in code for quick navigation. Other navigational aids include collapsing code blocks and incremental search, in addition to normal text search and ragedx search. The code editor also includes a multi-item clipboard and a task list. The code editor supports code snippets, which are saved templates for repetitive code and can be inserted into code and customized for the project being worked on. A management tool for code snippets is built in as well. These tools are surfaced as floating windows which can be set to automatically hide when unused or docked to the side of the screen. The Visual Studio code editor also supports code refactoring including parameter reordering, variable and method renaming, interface extraction and encapsulation of class members inside properties, among others. Visual Studio features background compilation (also called incremental compilation). As code is being written, Visual Studio compiles it in the background in order to provide feedback about syntax and compilation errors, which are flagged with a red wavy underline. Warnings are marked with a green underline. Background compilation does not generate executable code, since it requires a different compiler than the one used to generate executable code. Background

compilation was initially introduced with Microsoft Visual Basic but has now been expanded for all included languages.

Debugger
Visual Studio includes a debugger that works both as a source-level debugger and as a machinelevel debugger. It works with both managed code as well as native code and can be used for debugging applications written in any language supported by Visual Studio. In addition, it can also attach to running processes and monitor and debug those processes. If source code for the running process is available, it displays the code as it is being run. If source code is not available, it can show the disassembly. The Visual Studio debugger can also create memory dumps as well as load them later for debugging. Multi-threaded programs are also supported. The debugger can be configured to be launched when an application running outside the Visual Studio environment crashes.

The debugger allows setting breakpoints (which allow execution to be stopped temporarily at a certain position) and watches (which monitor the values of variables as the execution progresses). Breakpoints can be conditional, meaning they get triggered when the condition is met. Code can be stepped over, i.e., run one line (of source code) at a time. It can either step into functions to debug inside it, or step over it, i.e., the execution of the function body isn't available for manual inspection. The debugger supports Edit and Continue, i.e., it allows code to be edited as it is being debugged (32 bit only; not supported in 64 bit). When debugging, if the mouse pointer hovers over any variable, its current value is displayed in a tooltip ("data tooltips"), where it can also be modified if desired. During coding, the Visual Studio debugger lets certain functions be invoked manually from the immediate tool window. The parameters to the method are supplied at the immediate window

Designer
Visual Studio includes a host of visual designers to aid in the development of applications. These tools include:

Visual Studio Web Designer in code editor view

Visual Studio 2008 in Class Designer view

Windows Forms Designer

The Windows Forms designer is used to build GUI applications using windows form. Layout can be controlled by housing the controls inside other containers or locking them to the side of the form. Controls that display data (like textbox, list box, grid view, etc.) can be bound to data sources like databases or queries. Data-bound controls can be created by dragging items from the Data Sources window onto a design surface. The UI is linked with code using an event-driven programming model. The designer generates either C# or VB.NET code for the application.

WPF Designer

The WPF designer, codenamed Cider, was introduced with Visual Studio 2008. Like the Windows Forms designer it supports the drag and drop metaphor. It is used to author user interfaces targeting Windows Presentation Foundation. It supports all WPF functionality including data binding and automatic layout management. It generates XAML code for the UI. The generated XAML file is compatible with Microsoft Expression Design, the designer-oriented product. The XAML code is linked with code using a code-behind model.

Web designer/development

Visual Studio also includes a web-site editor and designer that allows web pages to be authored by dragging and dropping widgets. It is used for developing ASP.NET applications and supports HTML, CSS and JavaScript. It uses a code-behind model to link with ASP.NET code. From Visual Studio 2008 onwards, the layout engine used by the web designer is shared with Microsoft Expression Web. There is also ASP.NET MVC support for MVC technology as a separate download and ASP.NET Dynamic Data project available from Microsoft.

Class designer

The Class Designer is used to author and edit the classes (including its members and their access) using UML modeling. The Class Designer can generate C# and VB.NET code outlines for the classes and methods. It can also generate class diagrams from hand-written classes.

Data designer
The data designer can be used to graphically edit database schemas, including typed tables, primary and foreign keys and constraints. It can also be used to design queries from the graphical view.

Mapping designer

From Visual Studio 2008 onwards, the mapping designer is used by LINQ to SQL to design the mapping between database schemas and the classes that encapsulate the data. The new solution from ORM approach, ADO.NET Entity Framework, replaces and improves the old technolog

Other tools

Open Tabs Browser

The open tabs browser is used to list all open tabs and to switch between them. It is invoked using CTRL+TAB.

Properties Editor

The Properties Editor tool is used to edit properties in a GUI pane inside Visual Studio. It lists all available properties (both read-only and those which can be set) for all objects including classes, forms, web pages and other items.

Object Browser

The Object Browser is a namespace and class library browser for Microsoft .NET. It can be used to browse the namespaces (which are arranged hierarchically) in managed assemblies. The hierarchy may or may not reflect the organization in the file system.

Solution Explorer

In Visual Studio parlance, a solution is a set of code files and other resources that are used to build an application. The files in a solution are arranged hierarchically, which might or might not reflect the organization in the file system. The Solution Explorer is used to manage and browse the files in a solution.

Team Explorer

Team Explorer is used to integrate the capabilities of Team Foundation Server, the Revision Control System into the IDE (and the basis for Microsoft's Code Plex hosting environment for open source projects). In addition to source control it provides the ability to view and manage individual work items (including bugs, tasks and other documents) and to browse TFS statistics. It is included as part of a TFS install and is also available as a download for Visual Studio separately Team Explorer is also available as a stand-alone environment solely to access TFS services.

Data Explorer

Data Explorer is used to manage databases on Microsoft SQL Server instances. It allows creation and alteration of database tables (either by issuing T-SQL commands or by using the Data designer). It can also be used to create queries and stored procedures, with the latter in either T-SQL or in managed code via SQL CLR. Debugging and IntelliSense support is available as well.

Server Explorer

The Server Explorer tool is used to manage database connections on an accessible computer. It is also used to browse running Windows Services, performance counters, Windows Event Log and message queues and use them as a datasource.

Text Generation Framework

Visual Studio includes a full text generation framework called T4 which enables Visual Studio to generate text files from templates either in the IDE or via code.

VB.NET is not just a simple upgrade or the latest version of VB. VB.NET combines unprecedented developer productivity with performance, reliability, and deployment. VB.NET redesigns the whole process. It's still easy to grasp for new comers but it provides many new ways of managing projects. Below are the features of VB.NET.
1. LINQ Support
LINQ essentially is the composition of many standard query operators that allow you to work with data in a

more intuitive way regardless.

The benefits of using LINQ are significant Compile time checking C# language queries, and the ability to debug step by step through queries. 2. Expression Blend Support Expression blend is XAML generator tool for silverlight applications. You can install Expression blend as an embedded plug-in to Visual Studio 2008. By this you can get extensive web designer and JavaScript tool.

3. Windows Presentation Foundation WPF provides you an extensive graphic functionality you never seen these before. Visual Studio 2008 contains plenty of WPF Windows Presentation Foundation Library templates. By this a visual developer who is new to .NET, C# and VB.NET can easily develop the 2D and 3D graphic applications.

Visual Studio 2008 provides free game development library kits for games developers. currently this game development kits are available for C++ and also 2D/3D Dark Matter one image and sounds sets. 4. VS 2008 Multi-Targeting Support Earlier you were not able to working with .NET 1.1 applications directly in visual studio 2005. Now in Visual studio 2008 you are able to create, run, debug the .NET 2.0, .NET 3.0 and .NET 3.5 applications. You can also deploy .NET 2.0 applications in the machines which contains only .NET 2.0 not .NET 3.x. 5. AJAX support for ASP.NET

Previously developer has to install AJAX control library separately that does not come from VS, but now if you install Visual Studio 2008, you can built-in AJAX control library. This Ajax Library contains plenty of rich AJAX controls like Menu, TreeView, webparts and also these components support JSON and VS 2008 contains in built ASP.NET AJAX Control Extenders. 6. JavaScript Debugging Support Since starting of web development all the developers got frustration with solving javascript errors. Debugging the error in javascript is very difficult. Now Visual Studio 2008 makes it is simpler with javascript debugging. You can set break points and run the javaScript step by step and you can watch the local variables when you were debugging the javascript and solution explorer provides javascript document navigation support. 7. Nested Master Page Support Already Visual Studio 2005 supports nested master pages concept with .NET 2.0, but the problem with this Visual Studio 2005 that pages based on nested masters can't be edited using WYSIWYG web designer. But now in VS 2008 you can even edit the nested master pages.

8. LINQ Intellisense and JavaScript Intellisense support for silverlight applications

Most happy part for .NET developers is Visual Studio 2008 contains intellisense support for JavaScript. JavaScript Intellisense makes developers life easy when writing client side validation, AJAX applications and also when writing Silverlight applications Intellisense Support: When we are writing the LINQ Query VS provides LINQ query syntax as tool tips. 9. Organize Imports or Usings: We have Organize Imports feature already in Eclipse. Since many days I have been waiting for this feature even in VS. Now VS contains Organize Imports feature which removes unnecessary namespaces which you have imported. You can select all the namespaces and right click on it, then you can get context menu with Organize imports options like "Remove Unused Using", "Sort Using", "Remove and Sort". Refactoring support for new .NET 3.x features like Anonymous types, Extension Methods, Lambda Expressions. 10. Intellisense Filtering: Earlier in VS 2005 when we were typing with intellisense box all the items were being displayed. For example If we type the letter 'K' then intellisense takes you to the items starts with 'K' but also all other items will be presented in intellisense box. Now in VS 2008 if you press 'K' only the items starts with 'K' will be filtered and displayed. 11. Intellisense Box display position

Earlier in some cases when you were typing the an object name and pressing . (period) then intellisense was being displayed in the position of the object which you have typed. Here the code which we type will go back to the dropdown, in this case sometimes programmer may disturb to what he was typing. Now in VS 2008 If you hold the Ctrl key while the intellisense is dropping down then intellisense box will become semitransparent mode. 12. Visual Studio 2008 Split View

VS 205 has a feature show both design and source code in single window. but both the windows tiles horizontally. In VS 2008 we can configure this split view feature to vertically, this allows developers to use maximum screen on laptops and wide-screen monitors. Here one of the good feature is if you select any HTML or ASP markup text in source window automatically corresponding item will be selected in design window. 13. HTML JavaScript warnings, not as errors: VS 2005 mixes HTML errors and C# and VB.NET errors and shows in one window. Now VS 2008 separates this and shows javascript and HTML errors as warnings. But this is configurable feature. 14. Debugging .NET Framework Library Source Code: Now in VS 2008 you can debug the source code of .NET Framework Library methods. Lets say If you want to debug the DataBind() method of DataGrid control you can place a debugging point over there and continue with debug the source code of DataBind() method. 15. In built Silverlight Library

Earlier we used to install silverlight SDK separately, Now in VS 2008 it is inbuilt, with this you can create, debug and deploy the silverlight applications. 16. Visual Studio LINQ Designer

Already you know in VS 2005 we have inbuilt SQL Server IDE feature. by this you no need to use any other tools like SQL Server Query Analyzer and SQL Server Enterprise Manger. You have directly database explorer by this you can create connections to your database and you can view the tables and stored procedures in VS IDE itself. But now in VS 2008 it has View Designer window capability with LINQ-to-SQL. 17. Inbuilt C++ SDK Earlier It was so difficult to download and configure the C++ SDK Libraries and tools for developing windows based applications. Now it is inbuilt with VS 2008 and configurable 18. Multilingual User Interface Architecture - MUI

MUI is an architecture contains packages from Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office libraries. This supports the user to change the text language display as he wish. Visual Studio is now in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Japanese, and Korean Over the next couple of months. Microsoft is reengineering the MUI which supports nine local languages then you can even view Visual studio in other 9 local languages. 19. Microsoft Popfly Support

Microsoft Popfly explorer is an add-on to VS 2008, by this directly you can deploy or hosting the Silverlight applications and Marshup objects 20. Free Tools and Resources People may feel that I am a promoter to Visual Studio 2008 as a salesman, but we get plenty of free resources and free tools with Visual Studio 2008.

Visual Studio 2008 Trial 101 LINQ Samples free .NET 3.5 control libraries with free sample programs, You can get plenty of free video training tutorials from Microsoft BDLC - Beginner Developer Learning Center, C++ games development library, Microsoft has provided lot of e-Books, P2P library and Microsoft is providing Coding4Fun sample program kit. Visual Studio Registration Discounts: If you register the Visual Studio you get Free Control Libraries, Books, Images, and Discounts.

21. We can use for Commercial Earlier you were spending lot of money to host your .NET applications for commercial use. Now you no need to worry Now Microsoft is providing you to host your application free on Popfly for web pages and also visual studio express projects.

(Back End)

Microsoft SQL Server is a relational database management system (RDBMS) produced by Microsoft. Its primary query languages are MS-SQL and T-SQL. SQL Server 2005, released in October 2005, is the successor to SQL Server 2000. SQL CLR was introduced with SQL Server 2005 to let it integrate with the .NET Framework. It adds a powerful new set of development and query tools with SQL Server Management Studio and Business Intelligence Development Studio. Robust multilingual features make SQL Server 2005 a compelling database product and applications platform for the support of international operations and environments. FEATURES OF MICROSOFT SQL SERVER 2005 1. Architecture Protocol layer

Protocol layer implements the external interface to SQL Server. All operations that can be invoked on SQL Server are communicated to it via a Microsoft-defined format, called Tabular Data Stream (TDS).

TDS is an application layer protocol, used to transfer data between a database server and a client.TDS packets can be encased in other physical transport dependent protocols, including TCP/IP, Named pipes, and Shared memory. Consequently, access to SQL Server is available over these protocols. In addition, the SQL Server API is also exposed over bando web services.

2. Data Storage

The main unit of data storage is a database, which is a collection of tables with typed columns. SQL Server supports different data types, including primary types such as Integer, Float, Decimal, Char (including character strings), Varchar (variable length character strings), binary (for unstructured blobs of data), Text (for textual data) among others.

It also allows user-defined composite types (UDTs) to be defined and used. SQL Server also makes server statistics available as virtual tables and views (called Dynamic Management Views or DMVs). A database can also contain other objects including views, stored procedures, indexes and constraints, in addition to tables, along with a transaction log. A SQL Server database can contain a maximum of 231 objects, and can span multiple OS-level files with a maximum file size of 220 TB. The data in the database are stored in primary data files with an extension .mdf. Secondary data files, identified with an .ndf extension, are used to store optional metadata. Log files are identified with the

.ldf extension.
Storage space allocated to a database is divided into sequentially numbered pages, each 8 KB in size. A page is the basic unit of I/O for SQL Server operations.

3. Buffer Management SQL Server buffers pages in RAM to minimize disc I/O. Any 8 KB page can be buffered inmemory, and the set of all pages currently buffered is called the buffer cache. The amount of memory available to SQL Server decides how many pages will be cached in memory. The buffer cache is managed by the Buffer Manager. Either reading from or writing to any page copies it to the buffer cache. Subsequent reads or writes are redirected to the in-memory copy, rather than the on-disc version. The page is updated on the disc by the Buffer Manager only if the in-memory cache has not been referenced for some time. While writing pages back to disc, asynchronous I/O is used whereby the I/O operation is done in a background thread so that other operations do not have to wait for the I/O operation to complete.

Each page is written along with its checksum when it is written. When reading the page back, its checksum is computed again and matched with the stored version to ensure the page has not been damaged or tampered with in the mean time.

4.

Logging and Transaction

SQL Server ensures that any change to the data is ACID-compliant, i.e., it uses transactions to ensure that any operation either totally completes or is undone if fails, but never leave the database in an intermediate state.

Using transactions, a sequence of actions can be grouped together, with the guarantee that either all actions will succeed or none will. SQL Server implements transactions using a write-ahead log. Any changes made to any page will update the in-memory cache of the page, simultaneously all the operations performed will be written to a log, along with the transaction ID which the operation was a part of.

SQL Server ensures that the log will be written onto the disc before the actual page is written back. This enables SQL Server to ensure integrity of the data, even if the system fails.

5.

Concurrency and Locking

SQL Server allows multiple clients to use the same database concurrently. As such, it needs to control concurrent access to shared data, to ensure data integrity - when multiple clients update the same data, or clients attempt to read data that is in the process of being changed by another client. SQL Server provides two modes of concurrency control: pessimistic concurrency and optimistic concurrency.

When pessimistic concurrency control is being used, SQL Server controls concurrent access by using locks. Locks can be either shared or exclusive. Exclusive lock grants the user exclusive access to the data - no other user can access the data as long as the lock is held. Shared locks are used when some data is being read - multiple users can read from data locked with a shared lock, but not acquire an exclusive lock.

SQL Server also provides the optimistic concurrency control mechanism, which is similar to the multiversion concurrency control used in other databases. The mechanism allows a new version of a

row to be created whenever the row is updated, as opposed to overwriting the row, i.e., a row is additionally identified by the ID of the transaction that created the version of the row.

6. Data Retrieval

The main mode of retrieving data from an SQL Server database is querying for it. The query is expressed using a variant of SQL called T-SQL, a dialect Microsoft SQL Server shares with Sybase SQL Server due to its legacy. The query declaratively specifies what is to be retrieved.

It is processed by the query processor, which figures out the sequence of steps that will be necessary to retrieve the requested data. The sequence of actions necessary to execute a query is called a query plan. There might be multiple ways to process the same query.

For example, for a query that contains a join statement and a select statement, executing join on both the tables and then executing select on the results would give the same result as selecting from each table and then executing the join, but result in different execution plans. In such case, SQL Server chooses the plan that is supposed to yield the results in the shortest possible time. This is called query optimization and is performed by the query processor itself.

7. SQL CLR

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 includes a component named SQL CLR via which it integrates with .NET Framework. SQL Server itself hosts the .NET Framework runtime, i.e., memory, threading and resource management requirements of .NET Framework are satisfied by SQLOS itself, rather than the underlying Windows operating system.

SQLOS provides deadlock detection and resolution services for .NET code as well. With SQL CLR, stored procedures and triggers can be written in any managed .NET language, including C# and VB.NET.

8. High Performance

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 can meet the most demanding performance expectations of any system. With high speed load utilities, distinctive memory caches, full text indexes and other performance-enhancing mechanisms, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 offers all the right ammunition for todays critical business systems.

9. Flexibility

flexibility is a stalwart feature of Microsoft SQL Server 2005 with all flavors of Linux, UNIX and Windows being supported. Microsoft SQL Server 2005 allows complete customization for those wanting to add unique requirements to the database server.

10. Web and Data Warehouse Strengths

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 is the effective standard for high-traffic web sites because of its highperformance query engine, tremendously fast data inserts capability and strong support for specialized web functions like fast full text searches.

11. Comprehensive Application Development

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 provides comprehensive support for every application development need. Within the database, support can be found for stored procedures, triggers, functions, views, cursors, ANSI-standard SQL and more.

12. Lowest Total Cost of Ownership

By migrating current database-drive applications to Microsoft SQL Server 2005 or using Microsoft SQL Server 2005 for new development projects, corporations are realizing cost savings that many times stretch into seven figures. Accomplished through the use of the Microsoft SQL Server 2005 database server and scale-out architectures that utilize low-cost commodity hardware, corporations are finding that they can achieve amazing levels of scalability and performance, all at a cost that is far less than those offered by proprietary and scale-up software vendors.