Introducing New Features in Visual Studio 2013: Part 2

Before reading this article, go through the following article:

Introducing New Features in Visual Studio 2013

Introduction

Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 provides developers with a new taste of .NET Framework, version 4.5.1. In particular, this release includes several new features and in my opinion they are very helpful for developers.

Now in addition I am introducing some more features. These are given below:

• Asynchronous Debugging
• CodeLens
• ADO.NET Connection Resiliency
• ASP.NET Application Suspension
• XAML Enhancement
• C++ 11 Standard Support   

Asynchronous Debugging

The release of the new framework now makes it helpful for Asynchronous Debugging using the Call Stack Window and the Tasks Window. The use of these windows are more helpful for the apps that are targeting the Window Store, Web Apps.

CodeLens

This is the new feature launched by Microsoft. This is also known as Code Information Indicator. This feature views the references of the method within the code. This feature also checks the changes made into the method and how many tests reference that method and how many test passed that method. In general, if any developer is working on any method, now the developer can check who is calling that method and those methods also what other methods are calling by the developer.

ADO.NET Connection Resiliency

ADO.NET Connection is more reliable and easy to use in the application. The connection failure in previous releases would lead to exceptions. This feature rebuilds the connection with the SQL Database automatically and more transparently. This feature identifies the connection failure and continues working.

ASP.NET Application Suspension

ASP.NET now can host many new sites with the new approach of Application Suspension. Previously the website hosting is expensive, but now with this new feature the problem is solved. In general, now when the sites are in the idle state then the idle sites are suspended from the CPU and paged to the disk to make CPU memory free to receive more requests that enables the start-up so much faster because the idle sites are in the "ready-to-go" state. This function is done via IIS settings by changing the idle Time-out action to Suspend. 

Reference

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dotnet/archive/2013/06/26/announcing-the-net-framework-4-5-1-preview.aspx

XAML Enhancement

The development experience is now easier for XAML for developing Windows Store apps by enhancing the XAML language. Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 added IntelliSense for data binding and resources and also includes Go To Definition for navigating styles and code snippets. The HTML User Interface is also enhanced by Visual Studio. This enhancement lets developers easily locate and diagnose problems.

C++ 11 Standard Support

C++ development is much easier for the developers with this new release, because it now supports the C++ 11 Standard. The C++ Standard supports features like delegating constructors, row string literals, explicit conversation operators and variadic templates. This improves the performance to C++ AMP and C++ auto-vectorizer.