Microsoft Visual Studio .net (VS.net), a key part of the software
giant's Web services platform, was launched earlier this
week.
The .net toolkit for building XML-based Web services was officially
launched by Microsoft chairman Bill Gates at the VSLive show in San
Francisco.
Analysts said Web applications will perform better on VS.net but
warned that its object oriented language could mean companies need
to give their IT staff extra training to use it.
Jeff Prosise, co-founder of software education and consulting firm
Wintellect, said, "One advantage of VS.net is that certain types of
applications, especially for the Web, perform better compared to
Active Server Pages [ASP - a language for developing dynamic Web
pages] applications. VS.net Web applications are also easier to
write and maintain than ASP applications, and they have richer
feature sets, too."
Disadvantages of VS.net include the relative difficulty of
converting a standard application to run over the Internet, Prosise
added.
Other consultants said VS.net could add to a company's IT training
costs, due to its reliance on object oriented programming.
Justin Crossley, senior developer at consultancy Objective, said,
"There is a need for training because the new Visual Basic
environment is very different and requires the developer to think
and work differently."
Hogg Robinson subsidiary Business Travel International (BTI), which
was an early adopter of VS.net, said the initial challenges of
using the software have been offset by gains in efficiency.
Paul Saggar, director of technology development at Hogg Robinson's
Business Technology Division was responsible for moving BTI
HotelBooker, an online accommodation booking site, to VS.net.
"Migration was not as easy as moving between previous releases of
Visual Studio," he said. "Not that VS.net is a difficult
development environment, but it is different to Visual Studio.
"Previous Visual Basic versions did not truly implement object
orientation, but C++ programmers who are familiar with objects will
find it quick and natural to move on. It has been definitely worth
the effort."