Visual Studio Hacks

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Visual Studio Hacks

O Reilly has hit on an beruser demographic with their Hack series of titles, and the discoveryhas been lucrative enough to spawn over 25 other Hack books. Prominent titles from this collection include Google Hacks, PDF Hacks, and Windows Hacks.Given the enormous flexibility Microsoft programmed into the Visual Studio.NETIDE, key individuals in the VS.NET developer community have made it theirmission to plumb the depths of the environment in an effort to reveal the manyways it can be molded. Visual StudioHacks author James Avery and his posse of 12 VS.NET enthusiasts havecaptured 100 tips and tricks designed to optimize, bemuse, and inspire fellowVS.NET users. Some of the tips are eyebrow raising, others are golden needlesin a haystack, and some are yawners but most simply elicit shrugs.

The book breaks down its hacks into 13 chapters,covering topics from understanding the contents of project files, tweaking theeditor, and customizing the environment to speed hacks (code writing macros andcommand line execution) and enhancing/extending the VS.NET IDE. Most hacks arewell written; others are unnaturally verbose. Granted, the book must cater to arange of proficiency, but some of the tips spend an inordinate amount of timeon mundane tasks. For example, tip #69 on how to Create Comments Faster spends nearly five pages on a tip that could have been summarized into just afew steps:

I would much rather have this book filled with 500 ofthese types of terse explanations. Give me a reason why it s cool, how to doit, where I can download it if it s a software extension/utility, and anyanomalies or FYIs I should know about when using it. In fact, some of the mostvaluable hacks are simply pointers to tools that others have written to tweakthe environment, such as the VSTweak power toy (available at http://workspaces.gotdotnet.com/vstweak)used in several of the hacks.

Visual Studio Hacksis a mild disappointment. When this book arrived I was anticipating a goodresource for some things I never knew about that were going to make me vastlymore productive, or at the very least, have me frequently say, That s cool! Unfortunately,based on the total number of hacks unveiled in the book, the cool to apathetic response ratio was roughly 1 in 20. Perhaps those developers who have neverspent much time spelunking the depths of what comprises VS.NET will find thisbook more appealing, but for those of us who live inside it every day, Visual Studio Hacks is simply a hiddenspots travel guide for VS.NET tourists.

Mike Riley

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Title: Visual Studio Hacks

Author: JamesAvery

Publisher: O Reilly

ISBN:0-596-00847-3

Web Site: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/visualstudiohks/

Price: US$24.95

Page Count: 478pages