The VS2010 C++ compiler now supports the lambda expressions, rvalue references, compile-time assertions, expression type discovery, and automatic type deduction features of the C++0x standard. Another piece of good news is that the VS2010 C++ compiler has a mode that is backward-compatible with the Visual Studio 2008 tools and libraries. This will make it easier for individual developers to upgrade even if the rest of the team doesn't want to switch over.

Web deployment hasn't historically been one of Visual Studio's great strengths. All too often, I found myself switching to an FTP client for deployment instead of using the deployment tools in Visual Studio 2008. The one-click publishing feature of VS2010 may well change that, although I have yet to work up the courage to use it on a production site.

For me, the biggest new features of VS2010 have to do with parallel programming. I once wrote part of a book on parallel programming, and I have been following the various languages, frameworks, and libraries with interest, including Joe Duffy's work at Microsoft. I'm not sure that I've completely grasped the power of the new .Net Framework and native C++ support for task and data parallelism in VS2010, but what I've seen so far is impressive. A bunch of interesting parallel programming samples have recently been posted on ; I think they're worth checking out.

I'm not going to cover Team System or Team Foundation Server in this first look, but I want to mention the Architecture Explorer, a client-side feature of Team System. Microsoft has gotten serious about UML modeling; in the last two screen shots of the I demonstrate class exploration and the automatic generation of architecture diagrams, which are just two of the many features useful to programmers as well as architects.