14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft continues to provide solutions orbiting around its next-generation development platform and tools, well after the first public release of Visual Studio 2010 was launched in mid-May, 2009. The latest addition to the list of items designed to expand Visual Studio 2010 is ASP.NET MVC. The web framework tailored specifically for the first beta of Visual Studio 2010 is currently live on Microsoft's open-source project repository website CodePlex, and is available for download. The company indicated that the bits were in Alpha stage for the time being.
Another temporary detail is the availability of ASP.NET MVC for Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 as a standalone download. This aspect will change as the successor of Visual Studio 2010 will be finalized. “The MVC framework for ASP.NET allows you to create applications that follow the model/view/controller architecture. VS2010 Beta 1 did not have MVC built-in to the product. MVC will be included in the final release of the product. After installation you will have MVC templates installed for both VB and C#,” stated Jason Zander, general manager, Visual Studio, Developer Division.
ASP.NET MVC wasn't included into Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 simply because of lack of synchronization between the development processes for the two products. Microsoft had started locking down the first Beta for VS 2010 before MVC 1.0 was available. MVC will become an integral component of Visual Studio 2010 starting with the Beta 2 release.
“You’ll notice that the installer says this is ASP.NET MVC 1.1, but as the readme notes point out, this is really ASP.NET MVC 1.0 retargeted for Visual Studio 2010. The 1.1 is just a placeholder version number. We bumped up the version number to avoid runtime conflicts with ASP.NET MVC 1.0,” explained Phil Haack, a senior program manager at Microsoft on the ASP.NET team.
Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 is available for download here.