New features in VB.Net 9 (Orcas)

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MSDN has just published an article that gives you a great overview of the new features in the next version of the Visual Basic language (VB9).

Except from the conclusion:

Visual Basic 9.0 introduces a variety of new features. In this document, we have presented these features in a series of linked examples, but the underlying themes deserve emphasis as well:

  • Relational, object, and XML data. Visual Basic 9.0 unifies access to data independently of its source in relational databases, XML documents, or arbitrary object graphs, however persisted or stored in memory. The unification consists in styles, techniques, tools, and programming patterns. The especially flexible syntax of Visual Basic makes it easy to add extensions like XML literals and SQL-like query comprehensions deeply into the language. This greatly reduces the "surface area" of the new .NET Language Integrated Query APIs, increases the discoverability of data-access features through IntelliSense and Smart Tags, and vastly improves debugging by lifting foreign syntaxes out of string data into the host language. In the future, we intend to increase the consistency of XML data even further by leveraging XSD schemas.
  • Increased dynamism with all the benefits of static typing. The benefits of static typing are well known: identifying bugs at compile time rather than run time, high performance through early-bound access, clarity through explicitness in source code, and so on. However, sometimes, dynamic typing makes code shorter, clearer, and more flexible. If a language does not directly support dynamic typing, when programmers need it they must implement bits and pieces of dynamic structure through reflection, dictionaries, dispatch tables, and other techniques. This opens up opportunities for bugs and raises maintenance costs. By supporting static typing where possible, and dynamic typing where needed, Visual Basic delivers the best of both worlds to programmers.
  • Reduced cognitive load on programmers. Features such as type inference, object initializers, and relaxed delegates greatly reduce code redundancy and the number of exceptions to the rules that programmers need to learn and remember or look up, with no impact on performance. Features such as dynamic interfaces support IntelliSense even in the case of late-binding, greatly improving discoverability over advanced features.

Although it may seem that the Visual Basic 9.0 list of new features is long, we hope the above themes will convince you that it is coherent, timely, and dedicated to making Visual Basic the world's finest programming system. We hope your imagination will be stimulated, too, and that you will join us in realizing that this is really just the beginning of even greater things to come.

The full article is here... check it out if you are considering switching from earlier versions...

Update: This is the next version of VB - not the version that ships with VS2005... my bad...VB2005 stuff is here