The end result is that these extensions become very robust and often end up becoming part of a later product release.Īn excellent example of this is the new CodeLens feature of Visual Studio 2013. By providing extensions which add new functionality or change existing functionality, Microsoft is not only able to rapidly innovate on new features and changes but to also get those changes into the hands of developers world-wide for feedback. However, there is an even more important function that it serves. Why is this such an important feature? Simply put, it allows third-parties (companies such as JetBrains, Telerik, Red Gate, Devart, and DevExpress, just to name a few) to provide enhanced developer productivity experiences directly within the product by providing new functionality or changing existing functionality.
Microsoft itself has over 100 items in the Gallery and more are added all of the time. As of today, there are over 4000 items in the Gallery. The Visual Studio Gallery changed all of that. I know Visual Studio had this ability before the Gallery existed, but it was expensive (both from a financial and development resource) perspective for a company or individual to write such an extension. Specifically, I’m referring to the Visual Studio Gallery (first introduced in Visual Studio 2010) and the ability for third-parties to easily write extensions which can add new functionality to Visual Studio or even change existing functionality. While we can argue over what was and wasn’t an important change or what has and hasn’t changed, I want to talk about what I think is the single most important change Microsoft has made to Visual Studio. In that time, there have been some major changes but perhaps the most important (or at least influential) changes for the course of the product have been in the last few years. In fact, it’s been 18 years since the first Visual Studio product was launched. As a product, Visual Studio has been around for a long time.
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