22 New Features of Visual Studio 2008 for .

NET Professionals
1. LINQ Support

LINQ essentially is the composition of many standard query operators that allow you to work with data in a
more intuitive way regardless.

The benefits of using LINQ are significant – Compile time checking C# language queries, and the ability to
debug step by step through queries.

2. Expression Blend Support

Expression blend is XAML generator tool for silverlight applications. You can install Expression blend as an
embedded plug-in to Visual Studio 2008. By this you can get extensive web designer and JavaScript tool.

3. Windows Presentation Foundation

WPF provides you an extensive graphic functionality you never seen these before. Visual Studio 2008
contains plenty of WPF Windows Presentation Foundation Library templates. By this a visual developer who
is new to .NET, C# and VB.NET can easily develop the 2D and 3D graphic applications.

Visual Studio 2008 provides free game development library kits for games developers. currently this game
development kits are available for C++ and also 2D/3D Dark Matter one image and sounds sets.

4. VS 2008 Multi-Targeting Support

Earlier you were not able to working with .NET 1.1 applications directly in visual studio 2005. Now in Visual
studio 2008 you are able to create, run, debug the .NET 2.0, .NET 3.0 and .NET 3.5 applications. You can
also deploy .NET 2.0 applications in the machines which contains only .NET 2.0 not .NET 3.x.

5. AJAX support for ASP.NET

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Previously developer has to install AJAX control library separately that does not come from VS, but now if
you install Visual Studio 2008, you can built-in AJAX control library. This Ajax Library contains plenty of rich
AJAX controls like Menu, TreeView, webparts and also these components support JSON and VS 2008
contains in built ASP.NET AJAX Control Extenders.

6. JavaScript Debugging Support

Since starting of web development all the developers got frustration with solving javascript errors.
Debugging the error in javascript is very difficult. Now Visual Studio 2008 makes it is simpler with javascript
debugging. You can set break points and run the javaScript step by step and you can watch the local
variables when you were debugging the javascript and solution explorer provides javascript document
navigation support.

7. Nested Master Page Support

Already Visual Studio 2005 supports nested master pages concept with .NET 2.0, but the problem with this
Visual Studio 2005 that pages based on nested masters can't be edited using WYSIWYG web designer. But
now in VS 2008 you can even edit the nested master pages.

8. LINQ Intellisense and Javascript Intellisense support for silverlight applications

Most happy part for .NET developers is Visual Studio 2008 contains intellisense support for javascript.
Javascript Intellisense makes developers life easy when writing client side validation, AJAX applications and
also when writing Silverlight applications

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Intellisense Support: When we are writing the LINQ Query VS provides LINQ query syntax as tool tips.

9. Organize Imports or Usings: We have Organize Imports feature already in Eclipse. SInce many days I
have been waiting for this feature even in VS. Now VS contains Organize Imports feature which removes
unnecessary namespaces which you have imported. You can select all the namespaces and right click on it,
then you can get context menu with Organize imports options like "Remove Unused Usings", "Sort Usings",
"Remove and Sort". Refactoring support for new .NET 3.x features like Anonymous types, Extension
Methods, Lambda Expressions.

10. Intellisense Filtering: Earlier in VS 2005 when we were typing with intellisense box all the items were
being displayed. For example If we type the letter 'K' then intellisense takes you to the items starts with 'K'
but also all other items will be presented in intellisense box. Now in VS 2008 if you press 'K' only the items
starts with 'K' will be filtered and displayed.

11. Intellisense Box display position

Earlier in some cases when you were typing the an object name and pressing . (period) then intellisense was
being displayed in the position of the object which you have typed. Here the code which we type will go back
to the dropdown, in this case sometimes programmer may disturb to what he was typing. Now in VS 2008 If
you hold the Ctrl key while the intellisense is dropping down then intellisense box will become semi-
transparent mode.

12. Visual Studio 2008 Split View

VS 205 has a feature show both design and source code in single window. but both the windows tiles
horizontally. In VS 2008 we can configure this split view feature to vertically, this allows developers to use
maximum screen on laptops and wide-screen monitors.

Here one of the good feature is if you select any HTML or ASP markup text in source window automatically
corresponding item will be selected in design window.

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13. HTML JavaScript warnings, not as errors: VS 2005 mixes HTML errors and C# and VB.NET errors
and shows in one window. Now VS 2008 separates this and shows javascript and HTML errors as warnings.
But this is configurable feature.

14. Debugging .NET Framework Library Source Code:

Now in VS 2008 you can debug the source code of .NET Framework Library methods. Lets say If you want to
debug the DataBind() method of DataGrid control you can place a debugging point over there and continue
with debug the source code of DataBind() method.

15. In built Silverlight Library

Earlier we used to install silverlight SDK separately, Now in VS 2008 it is inbuilt, with this you can create,
debug and deploy the silverlight applications.

16. Visual Studio LINQ Designer

Already you know in VS 2005 we have inbuilt SQL Server IDE feature. by this you no need to use any other
tools like SQL Server Query Analyzer and SQL Server Enterprise Manger. You have directly database
explorer by this you can create connections to your database and you can view the tables and stored
procedures in VS IDE itself. But now in VS 2008 it has View Designer window capability with LINQ-to-SQL.

17. Inbuilt C++ SDK

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Earlier It was so difficult to download and configure the C++ SDK Libraries and tools for developing windows
based applications. Now it is inbuilt with VS 2008 and configurable

18. Multilingual User Interface Architecture - MUI

MUI is an architecture contains packages from Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office libraries. This
supports the user to change the text language display as he wish.

Visual Studio is now in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional,
Japanese, and Korean. Over the next couple of months. Microsoft is reengineering the MUI which supports
nine local languages then you can even view Visual studio in other 9 local languages.

19. Microsoft Popfly Support

Microsoft Popfly explorer is an add-on to VS 2008, by this directly you can deploy or hosting the Silverlight
applications and Marshup objects

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FAQ

1. What’s the implicit name of the parameter that gets passed into the class’ set method?
Value, and its datatype depends on whatever variable we’re changing.
2. How do you inherit from a class in C#? Place a colon and then the name of the base class.
Notice that it’s double colon in C++.
3. Does C# support multiple inheritance? No, use interfaces instead.
4. When you inherit a protected class-level variable, who is it available to? Classes in the
same namespace.
5. Are private class-level variables inherited? Yes, but they are not accessible, so looking at it you
can honestly say that they are not inherited. But they are.
6. Describe the accessibility modifier protected internal. It’s available to derived classes and
classes within the same Assembly (and naturally from the base class it’s declared in).
7. C# provides a default constructor for me. I write a constructor that takes a string as a
parameter, but want to keep the no parameter one. How many constructors should I
write? Two. Once you write at least one constructor, C# cancels the freebie constructor, and now
you have to write one yourself, even if there’s no implementation in it.
8. What’s the top .NET class that everything is derived from? System.Object.
9. How’s method overriding different from overloading? When overriding, you change the
method behavior for a derived class. Overloading simply involves having a method with the same
name within the class.
10. What does the keyword virtual mean in the method definition? The method can be over-
ridden.
11. Can you declare the override method static while the original method is non-static? No,
you can’t, the signature of the virtual method must remain the same, only the keyword virtual is
changed to keyword override.
12. Can you override private virtual methods? No, moreover, you cannot access private methods
in inherited classes, have to be protected in the base class to allow any sort of access.
13. Can you prevent your class from being inherited and becoming a base class for some
other classes? Yes, that’s what keyword sealed in the class definition is for. The developer trying
to derive from your class will get a message: cannot inherit from Sealed class
WhateverBaseClassName. It’s the same concept as final class in Java.
14. Can you allow class to be inherited, but prevent the method from being over-ridden? Yes,
just leave the class public and make the method sealed.
15. What’s an abstract class? A class that cannot be instantiated. A concept in C++ known as pure
virtual method. A class that must be inherited and have the methods over-ridden. Essentially, it’s a
blueprint for a class without any implementation.
16. When do you absolutely have to declare a class as abstract (as opposed to free-willed
educated choice or decision based on UML diagram)? When at least one of the methods in
the class is abstract. When the class itself is inherited from an abstract class, but not all base
abstract methods have been over-ridden.
17. What’s an interface class? It’s an abstract class with public abstract methods all of which must
be implemented in the inherited classes.
18. Why can’t you specify the accessibility modifier for methods inside the interface? They all
must be public. Therefore, to prevent you from getting the false impression that you have any
freedom of choice, you are not allowed to specify any accessibility, it’s public by default.
19. Can you inherit multiple interfaces? Yes, why not.
20. And if they have conflicting method names? It’s up to you to implement the method inside
your own class, so implementation is left entirely up to you. This might cause a problem on a
higher-level scale if similarly named methods from different interfaces expect different data, but as
far as compiler cares you’re okay.
21. What’s the difference between an interface and abstract class? In the interface all methods
must be abstract; in the abstract class some methods can be concrete. In the interface no
accessibility modifiers are allowed, which is ok in abstract classes.
22. How can you overload a method? Different parameter data types, different number of
parameters, different order of parameters.
23. If a base class has a bunch of overloaded constructors, and an inherited class has
another bunch of overloaded constructors, can you enforce a call from an inherited
constructor to an arbitrary base constructor? Yes, just place a colon, and then keyword base
(parameter list to invoke the appropriate constructor) in the overloaded constructor definition
inside the inherited class.

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24. What’s the difference between System.String and System.StringBuilder classes?
System.String is immutable; System.StringBuilder was designed with the purpose of having a
mutable string where a variety of operations can be performed.
25. What’s the advantage of using System.Text.StringBuilder over System.String?
StringBuilder is more efficient in the cases, where a lot of manipulation is done to the text. Strings
are immutable, so each time it’s being operated on, a new instance is created.
26. Can you store multiple data types in System.Array? No.
27. What’s the difference between the System.Array.CopyTo() and System.Array.Clone()?
The first one performs a deep copy of the array, the second one is shallow.
28. How can you sort the elements of the array in descending order? By calling Sort() and then
Reverse() methods.
29. What’s the .NET datatype that allows the retrieval of data by a unique key? HashTable.
30. What’s class SortedList underneath? A sorted HashTable.
31. Will finally block get executed if the exception had not occurred? Yes.
32. What’s the C# equivalent of C++ catch (…), which was a catch-all statement for any
possible exception? A catch block that catches the exception of type System.Exception. You can
also omit the parameter data type in this case and just write catch {}.
33. Can multiple catch blocks be executed? No, once the proper catch code fires off, the control is
transferred to the finally block (if there are any), and then whatever follows the finally block.
34. Why is it a bad idea to throw your own exceptions? Well, if at that point you know that an
error has occurred, then why not write the proper code to handle that error instead of passing a
new Exception object to the catch block? Throwing your own exceptions signifies some design flaws
in the project.
35. What’s a delegate? A delegate object encapsulates a reference to a method. In C++ they were
referred to as function pointers.
36. What’s a multicast delegate? It’s a delegate that points to and eventually fires off several
methods.
37. How’s the DLL Hell problem solved in .NET? Assembly versioning allows the application to
specify not only the library it needs to run (which was available under Win32), but also the version
of the assembly.
38. What are the ways to deploy an assembly? An MSI installer, a CAB archive, and XCOPY
command.
39. What’s a satellite assembly? When you write a multilingual or multi-cultural application in .NET,
and want to distribute the core application separately from the localized modules, the localized
assemblies that modify the core application are called satellite assemblies.
40. What namespaces are necessary to create a localized application? System.Globalization,
System.Resources.
41. What’s the difference between // comments, /* */ comments and /// comments?
Single-line, multi-line and XML documentation comments.
42. How do you generate documentation from the C# file commented properly with a
command-line compiler? Compile it with a /doc switch.
43. What’s the difference between <c> and <code> XML documentation tag? Single line code
example and multiple-line code example.
44. Is XML case-sensitive? Yes, so <Student> and <student> are different elements.
45. What debugging tools come with the .NET SDK? CorDBG – command-line debugger, and
DbgCLR – graphic debugger. Visual Studio .NET uses the DbgCLR. To use CorDbg, you must
compile the original C# file using the /debug switch.
46. What does the This window show in the debugger? It points to the object that’s pointed to by
this reference. Object’s instance data is shown.
47. What does assert() do? In debug compilation, assert takes in a Boolean condition as a
parameter, and shows the error dialog if the condition is false. The program proceeds without any
interruption if the condition is true.
48. What’s the difference between the Debug class and Trace class? Documentation looks
the same. Use Debug class for debug builds, use Trace class for both debug and release builds.
49. Why are there five tracing levels in System.Diagnostics.TraceSwitcher? The tracing dumps
can be quite verbose and for some applications that are constantly running you run the risk of
overloading the machine and the hard drive there. Five levels range from None to Verbose,
allowing to fine-tune the tracing activities.
50. Where is the output of TextWriterTraceListener redirected? To the Console or a text file
depending on the parameter passed to the constructor.
51. How do you debug an ASP.NET Web application? Attach the aspnet_wp.exe process to the
DbgClr debugger.

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52. What are three test cases you should go through in unit testing? Positive test cases (correct
data, correct output), negative test cases (broken or missing data, proper handling), exception test
cases (exceptions are thrown and caught properly).
53. Can you change the value of a variable while debugging a C# application? Yes, if you are
debugging via Visual Studio.NET, just go to Immediate window.
54. Explain the three services model (three-tier application). Presentation (UI), business (logic
and underlying code) and data (from storage or other sources).
55. What are advantages and disadvantages of Microsoft-provided data provider classes in
ADO.NET? SQLServer.NET data provider is high-speed and robust, but requires SQL Server license
purchased from Microsoft. OLE-DB.NET is universal for accessing other sources, like Oracle, DB2,
Microsoft Access and Informix, but it’s a .NET layer on top of OLE layer, so not the fastest thing in
the world. ODBC.NET is a deprecated layer provided for backward compatibility to ODBC engines.
56. What’s the role of the DataReader class in ADO.NET connections? It returns a read-only
dataset from the data source when the command is executed.
57. What is the wildcard character in SQL? Let’s say you want to query database with LIKE
for all employees whose name starts with La. The wildcard character is %, the proper query
with LIKE would involve ‘La%’.
58. Explain ACID rule of thumb for transactions. Transaction must be Atomic (it is one unit of
work and does not dependent on previous and following transactions), Consistent (data is either
committed or roll back, no “in-between” case where something has been updated and something
hasn’t), Isolated (no transaction sees the intermediate results of the current transaction), Durable
(the values persist if the data had been committed even if the system crashes right after).
59. What connections does Microsoft SQL Server support? Windows Authentication (via Active
Directory) and SQL Server authentication (via Microsoft SQL Server username and passwords).
60. Which one is trusted and which one is untrusted? Windows Authentication is trusted because
the username and password are checked with the Active Directory, the SQL Server authentication
is untrusted, since SQL Server is the only verifier participating in the transaction.
61. Why would you use untrusted verificaion? Web Services might use it, as well as non-Windows
applications.
62. What does the parameter Initial Catalog define inside Connection String? The database
name to connect to.
63. What’s the data provider name to connect to Access database? Microsoft.Access.
64. What does Dispose method do with the connection object? Deletes it from the memory.
65. What is a pre-requisite for connection pooling? Multiple processes must agree that they will
share the same connection, where every parameter is the same, including the security settings.

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1.      Describe the role of inetinfo.exe, aspnet_isapi.dll andaspnet_wp.exe in the page
loading process. inetinfo.exe is theMicrosoft IIS server running, handling ASP.NET
requests among other things.When an ASP.NET request is received (usually a file with
.aspx extension),the ISAPI filter aspnet_isapi.dll takes care of it by passing the request
tothe actual worker process aspnet_wp.exe.

2.      What’s the difference between Response.Write() andResponse.Output.Write()?

The latter one allows you to write formattedoutput.

3.      What methods are fired during the page load? Init() - when the pageis instantiated,
Load() - when the page is loaded into server memory,PreRender() - the brief moment
before the page is displayed to the user asHTML, Unload() - when page finishes
loading.

4.      Where does the Web page belong in the .NET Framework class hierarchy?
System.Web.UI.Page

5.      Where do you store the information about the user’s locale?
System.Web.UI.Page.Culture

6.      What’s the difference between Codebehind="MyCode.aspx.cs"

andSrc="MyCode.aspx.cs"? CodeBehind is relevant to Visual Studio.NET only.

7.      What’s a bubbled event? When you have a complex control, like DataGrid, writing
an event processing routine for each object (cell, button, row, etc.) is quite tedious.
The controls can bubble up their eventhandlers, allowing the main DataGrid event
handler to take care of its constituents.

8.      Suppose you want a certain ASP.NET function executed on MouseOver overa
certain button. Where do you add an event handler? It’s the Attributesproperty, the
Add function inside that property. So
btnSubmit.Attributes.Add("onMouseOver","someClientCode();"
)

9.      What data type does the RangeValidator control support? Integer,String and Date.

10.  Explain the differences between Server-side and Client-side code? Server-side
code runs on the server. Client-side code runs in the clients’ browser.

11.  What type of code (server or client) is found in a Code-Behind class? Server-side
code.

12.  Should validation (did the user enter a real date) occur server-side or client-side?
Why? Client-side. This reduces an additional request to the server to validate the users
input.

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13.  What does the "EnableViewState" property do? Why would I want it on or off?
It enables the viewstate on the page. It allows the page to save the users input on a
form.

14.  What is the difference between Server.Transfer and Response.Redirect? Why

would I choose one over the other? Server.Transfer is used to post a form to another
page. Response.Redirect is used to redirect the user to another page or site.

15.  Can you explain the difference between an ADO.NET Dataset and an ADO
Recordset?

         A DataSet can represent an entire relational database in memory,

complete with tables, relations, and views.

         A DataSet is designed to work without any continuing connection to the

original data source.

         Data in a DataSet is bulk-loaded, rather than being loaded on demand.

         There's no concept of cursor types in a DataSet.

         DataSets have no current record pointer You can use For Each loops to
move through the data.

         You can store many edits in a DataSet, and write them to the original
data source in a single operation.

         Though the DataSet is universal, other objects in ADO.NET come in

different versions for different data sources.

16.  Can you give an example of what might be best suited to place in the
Application_Start and Session_Start subroutines? This is where you can set the
specific variables for the Application and Session objects.

17.  If I’m developing an application that must accommodate multiple security levels
though secure login and my ASP.NET web application is spanned across three
web-servers (using round-robin load balancing) what would be the best approach
to maintain login-in state for the users? Maintain the login state security through a
database.

18.  Can you explain what inheritance is and an example of when you might use it?
When you want to inherit (use the functionality of) another class. Base Class
Employee. A Manager class could be derived from the Employee base class.

19.  Whats an assembly? Assemblies are the building blocks of the .NET framework.

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20.  Describe the difference between inline and code behind. Inline code written along
side the html in a page. Code-behind is code written in a separate file and referenced
by the .aspx page.

21.  Explain what a diffgram is, and a good use for one? The DiffGram is one of the
two XML formats that you can use to render DataSet object contents to XML. For
reading database data to an XML file to be sent to a Web Service.

22.  Whats MSIL, and why should my developers need an appreciation of it if at all?
MSIL is the Microsoft Intermediate Language. All .NET compatible languages will
get converted to MSIL.

23.  Which method do you invoke on the DataAdapter control to load your generated
dataset with data? The .Fill() method

24.  Can you edit data in the Repeater control? No, it just reads the information from
its data source

25.  Which template must you provide, in order to display data in a Repeater control?
ItemTemplate

26.  How can you provide an alternating color scheme in a Repeater control? Use the
AlternatingItemTemplate

27.  What property must you set, and what method must you call in your code, in
order to bind the data from some data source to the Repeater control? You must
set the DataSource property and call the DataBind method.

28.  What base class do all Web Forms inherit from? The Page class.

29.  Name two properties common in every validation control? ControlToValidate

property and Text property.

30.  What tags do you need to add within the asp:datagrid tags to bind columns
manually? Set AutoGenerateColumns Property to false on the datagrid tag

31.  What tag do you use to add a hyperlink column to the DataGrid?
<asp:HyperLinkColumn>

32.  What is the transport protocol you use to call a Web service? SOAP is the
preferred protocol.

33.  True or False: A Web service can only be written in .NET? False

34.  What does WSDL stand for? (Web Services Description Language)

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35.  Where on the Internet would you look for Web services? (http://www.uddi.org)

36.  Which property on a Combo Box do you set with a column name, prior to setting
the DataSource, to display data in the combo box? DataTextField property

37.  Which control would you use if you needed to make sure the values in two
different controls matched? CompareValidator Control

38.  True or False: To test a Web service you must create a windows application or
Web application to consume this service? False, the webservice comes with a test
page and it provides HTTP-GET method to test.

39.  How many classes can a single .NET DLL contain? It can contain many classes.

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