LightSwitch 2011 is Here! No More Excuses!
Woot! Visual Studio LightSwitch 2011 RTM’d today, marking a great day for the Visual Studio family.
Visual Studio LightSwitch is the latest edition of the Visual Studio family and is by far the simplest way to build business applications for the desktop and the cloud. This has benefits for both the “end user” developer and the professional developer.
For the end-user developer, you can quickly create professional quality business applications with minimal (or perhaps no) code. Think “screens over data”, LightSwitch allows you to easily construct line of business applications that not only just work, but are automatically built in a way that is scalable and maintainable.
For the professional developer, you can customize LightSwitch with your own controls, code, and extensions. (Not to mention that LightSwitch takes some of the “hey can you build this for me real quick” –type requests that come from the business off your plate.)
Looking for additional details? Read Jason Zander’s announcement post, or the notice on the LightSwitch Team Blog.
Still not sure exactly what LightSwitch is? Maybe this video will help:
If you have an MSDN subscription, LightSwitch is in your subscriber downloads area and is ready for you to grab. If you don’t have an MSDN subscription, take it for a test drive today (90 days).
There are several ways to get started:
- Get an Overview of LightSwitch
- Learn how to build LightSwitch Applications (tutorials)
- Watch the instructional LightSwitch "How Do I?" videos
- Get the E-Book: Beginners Guide to Visual Studio LightSwitch (by Kunal Chowdhury)
- Visit the Developer Center.
If you played with any of the betas, you’ll notice several new, welcome additions to LightSwitch. One of my favorites is the inclusion of starter kits, templates to get you quickly ramped toward solving common business needs. These kits include templates for:
- Budget Manager - Application for managing budgets and expense data.
- Customer Service - Application for managing customer accounts and invoices.
- Expense Tracker - Application for creating and tracking expense reports.
- Issue Tracker - Application for tracking issues logged to an IT helpdesk.
- Job Candidate Tracker - Application for managing job applicants and open positions.
- Performance Review - Application for tracking employee performance data.
- Status Report - Application for tracking project updates and other statuses.
- Time Tracker - Application for managing employee time entry.
LightSwitch will give your team a leg up in enabling all breeds of developers to quickly and reliably build LOB applications for both the desktop and cloud. Welcome to the Visual Studio family, LightSwitch!