BUILD will be about much more than just about Windows 8

Sep 1, 2011 12:34 GMT  ·  By

While Microsoft has yet to make public the session list for BUILD, the company’s Windows 8’centric event will be much more than just about Windows 8. It will also be about the next major iteration of Visual Studio, for example.

At least this seems to be what Microsoft’s Zain Naboulsi (author of the Visual Studio Tips and Tricks series) is hinting in a post published earlier today.

In his “Visual Studio vNext IDE Enhancements” article, Naboulsi enumerates a list of improvements that are coming to Visual Studio 2010’s successor, including Project Round-Tripping, IDE search, Solution Explorer enhancements, Tab Well enhancements, streamlined Quick Find / Replace, Error List Window enhancements, etc.

“With the BUILD conference just around the corner and lots of announcements coming, I thought now would be a good time to pause the usual posts and talk about the next version of Visual Studio (vNext) and how you can prepare for some of the goodness to come,” Naboulsi said.

“(…)I will be blogging and tweeting directly from the BUILD conference while I am there to keep you up to date on the latest revelations that are coming out.”

And if you think about it, it makes perfect sense, since I believe that Microsoft cannot talk Windows 8 to developers without also talking Visual Studio vNext.

Devs already know that Visual Studio 2010 and Windows 7 are paired together, and it’s not that difficult to see that the same will be the case with Windows 8 and Visual Studio vNext.

It will be interesting to see the new HTML5 capabilities added to the next version of Visual Studio, especially in the context of Windows 8’s native support for immersive applications built with web technologies.

BUILD is now just two weeks away, so I guess that developers won’t have to wait all that much to find out what Windows 8 and Visual Studio vNext bring to the table.