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Visual Studio 2013, ALM, and DevOps

41 points| hypr_geek | 12 years ago |blogs.msdn.com | reply

40 comments

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[+] crazygringo|12 years ago|reply
I'm sorry, what the heck does "5,000 APIs" mean?

An API is like a platform or a mini-platform. 5,000 of them makes no sense. Do they mean 5,000 new API function calls in the Windows platform or something? Although that would be insanely large too. I don't get it.

[+] danbruc|12 years ago|reply
The only appearance of 5,000 I can find is the following one in the Visual Studio 2013 Preview announcement [1].

»In that context, we have our Build 2013 developer conference this week in San Francisco, where approximately 5000 developers have gathered in person (with many thousands more watching virtually) from around the world to discuss the next generation of software development with platforms and tools from Microsoft.«

Maybe someone just confused developers and APIs...

[1] http://blogs.msdn.com/b/somasegar/archive/2013/06/26/visual-...

[+] angersock|12 years ago|reply
Somewhat cynically: given the Byzantine nature of Microsoft, perhaps there really are 5000 APIs, all created by different groups. :)

More likely they're just sloppily enumerating function endpoints.

[+] josephlord|12 years ago|reply
It was pretty silly when Apple made a similar boast (WWDC 2012? 2011?) and it is still silly when Microsoft does it.

I think Apple meant new methods, classes and possibly even the options that you could pass as arguments.

Whatever it means I don't think that more is necessarily better and I hope no one has adding APIs as a performance metric!

[+] bitwize|12 years ago|reply
The set of APIs is closed under union.

A single function call specification is an API; and the union of two APIs is an API. So it's perfectly cromulent to say "We added 5000 new APIs to the WinRT API", as bizarre and confusing as it sounds, though AIUI only Microsoft routinely refers to single function signatures as APIs -- perhaps to make their products sound more impressive.

[+] nolok|12 years ago|reply
I don't know where this horrible practice originated, but this usually means 5000 function calls, yes. I often hear people say "do {this website] have APIs" too, with plurals.
[+] gliaskos|12 years ago|reply
X64 edit and continue, at last!!

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dotnet/archive/2013/06/26/announcing...

[+] j_s|12 years ago|reply
Nice! In practice that just meant I always switched to x86.

'Managed return value inspection' is a nice enhancement too.

[+] Gmo|12 years ago|reply
Ha thanks, this was really frustrating indeed.
[+] snarfy|12 years ago|reply
I was wondering why I would want to upgrade from 2012 because windows 8.1 isn't it. Now I know.
[+] lostoptimist|12 years ago|reply
Does this imply there will be a 64 bit VS? Or will it just take place entirely in an emulator?
[+] lawnchair_larry|12 years ago|reply
They seem to be going the way of Google, in a bad way. I don't want to "Sign in" to my IDE/compiler.
[+] jahabrewer|12 years ago|reply
How else are they going to keep track of your achievements and integrate with xbox live?
[+] yuhong|12 years ago|reply
It will be optional in the final version according to a blog post.
[+] joshuaellinger|12 years ago|reply
You know... adding 5K new things to a platform is not necessarily a good thing. Can you say bloat?
[+] vyrotek|12 years ago|reply
Or, you know... they could be all great and much needed?
[+] potatolicious|12 years ago|reply
Not really. I (tried) WinRT development when the Surface first came out. The API is pretty bare and lacks a lot of frameworks and general tools that you take for granted in iOS/Android land.

Expanding the API, at least in that direction, is probably a great thing.

[+] hemancuso|12 years ago|reply
Am I the only one who thinks they should call it VS 2014? By time it ships it'll only have a few months before it has an outdated title.
[+] Moto7451|12 years ago|reply
It seems to me that there will be yearly releases to coincide with the yearly release of Windows so there will likely be a separate VS2014.
[+] ScottWhigham|12 years ago|reply
I don't get it either. There was already a VS2012, and changing to VS2013 for a few months seems like a decision driven by some weird force. Waiting to release for another 3 months would not have killed anyone.
[+] SigmundA|12 years ago|reply
How about going back to version numbers so it doesn't matter what year it came out like everyone else?
[+] pestaa|12 years ago|reply
You should be happy they'll ship another one within 12 months! /sarcasm
[+] prajjwal|12 years ago|reply
I'm sorry but I can't parse "5000 new APIs", I start bleeding out of my nose. This is spam and incredibly shoddy journalism, even by engadget standards. Flagged.
[+] Raz0rblade|12 years ago|reply
some new abandon ware

Yesterday i had to explain to some people i work with what Microsoft is, they dont know it, and dont understand it, they are used to android these days. And find the whole thing confusing why pay for it ?.. its hard to justify or explain..

[+] jacalata|12 years ago|reply
I downvoted you for misuse of the word abandonware combined with off topic and poorly justified Microsoft bashing.
[+] norswap|12 years ago|reply
Our army of developer has over 9000 penises and 5000 APIs.