Smart Clients, Visual Studio 2008, and connecting the dots…

As I looked at the Patterns and Practices upcoming releases web site (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/practices/bb232643.aspx) and remembered reading some interesting posts about Acropolis not being included in Visual Studio 2008 but getting released later in 2008 (http://blogs.msdn.com/brada/archive/2007/06/05/some-common-acroplis-questions.aspx), I am afraid I connected the dots…

Neither the Smart Client Software Factory (SCSF) nor the Composite UI Application Block (CAB) are going to be released in a Visual Studio 2008 compatible release.   And Acropolis won’t be there until later in 2008.   This tells me it’s safer to continue smart client development using Visual Studio 2005 until after Acropolis has been released.

 I am currently installing the factory on a virtual PC in which I have installed Visual Studio 2008 so I can figure out what will be involved to get this guidance package to run in Visual Studio 2008.  We’ll see how far I can get without running into a brick wall…  More on that later.