14 DAY TRIAL // Want a tad of help to get you started developing projects with Visual Studio LightSwitch? Then look no further than the training resources Microsoft is offering free of charge.
The Visual Studio LightSwitch Training Kit is now live on the Microsoft Download Center, focused on the recently released Beta 2 development milestone of the technology.
Visual Studio LightSwitch Beta 2 went live earlier this week, with downloads available initially only to MSDN subscribers, although the Build will also be offered to the public soon.
“The Visual Studio LightSwitch Training Kit contains demos and labs to help you learn to use and extend LightSwitch. The introductory materials walk you through the Visual Studio LightSwitch product. By following the hands-on labs, you'll build an application to inventory a library of books,” the software giant stated.
“The more advanced materials will show developers how they can extend LightSwitch to make components available to the LightSwitch developer. In the advanced hands-on labs, you will build and package an extension that can be reused by the Visual Studio LightSwitch end user.”
Developers should also make sure to check out the Visual Studio LightSwitch Dev Center on MSDN, an important hub centralizing various resources about the technology, including essential training and “How Do I?” video tutorials, which are bound to come in handy.
In order to start leveraging Visual Studio LightSwitch Beta 2, devs will first of all need up upgrade to Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 (SP1) RTM, and uninstall the Beta 1 of LightSwitch, if they tested it.
Since it introduced a variety of changes in Beta 2, Microsoft has warned of the fact that Beta 1 projects will no longer work, and that developers will need to adapt them.
However, the promise from the software giant is that there will no longer be breaking changes between Beta 2 and the final version of Visual Studio LightSwitch.
Visual Studio LightSwitch Beta 2 Training Kit is available for download here. Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 (SP1) RTM ISO and Installer are available for download here.