Jeff Martin - Visual Studio 2015 Cookbook

Jeff Martin has been a contributing writer for InfoQ (http://www.infoq.com) for over four years, focusing on .NET and Microsoft-based platforms. Experienced in writing, testing, and designing software, he enjoys learning about new technologies and explaining them to a broader audience. You can follow his work at InfoQ as .NET lead editor.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my wife, Carolyn, for her support and encouragement as I set out to write another book. Additionally, I would like to thank the team at Packt Publishing for their efforts to make this book a success.

Ahmed Ilyas has a BEng degree from Napier University in Edinburgh, Scotland. He has majored in software development and has 17 years of professional experience in the field.

After leaving Microsoft, he ventured into setting up his own consultancy company, which offers the best possible solutions for a multitude of industries and provides real-world answers to those problems. He uses the Microsoft stack to build these technologies and to bring in the best practices, patterns, and software to his client base to enable long-term stability and compliance in the ever-changing software industry, improve software developers around the globe, pushing the limits in technology, and to enable the developers to better themselves.

This has been awarded the MVP in C# by Microsoft thrice for providing excellence and independent real-world solutions to problems faced by developers.

With 90% of the world using at least one form of Microsoft technology, his motivation and inspiration come from the breadth and depth of knowledge he has obtained from his research and the valuable wealth of information and research at Microsoft.

He has worked for a number of clients and employers. The reputation that he has earned has resulted in him having a large client base for his consultancy company, Sandler Ltd (UK) and Sandler Software (USA). His client base includes clients from different industries, ranging from digital media to medical and beyond. Some of his clients have included him on their approved contractors/consultants list; these include ICS Solution Ltd, who have placed him on their "DreamTeam" portal, and CODE Consulting/EPS Software (www.codemag.com) based in the USA.

Previously, he has contributed as a reviewer to books by Packt Publishing and wishes to thank them once again for this great opportunity.

I would like to thank the author and publisher of this book for giving me the great honor and privilege of reviewing this book. I would also like to thank my client base and, especially, Microsoft Corporation and my colleagues over there for enabling me to become a reputable leader as a software developer in the industry, which is my joy, passion, and pride.

The release of the Visual Studio 2015 Cookbook marks the third edition of a book series devoted to provide the reader with an informative tour of how Visual Studio 2015 (VS2015) can make your development work easier. This newest release of Visual Studio demonstrates Microsoft's renewed drive to make the best programming tools it can, regardless of the device and platforms that a developer is targeting. If that target happens to run Windows, then all the betterbut it is no longer a hindrance if it does not.

This book is significantly updated and rewritten so that the reader can make use of the incredible array of new tools and devices supported by VS2015. With the greater number of platforms supported, it can be easy to overlook the new features offered in VS2015. One of the main goals of this book is to show developers the new ways in which they can put VS2015 to work in their daily development.

This book will begin by providing a guided tour of the main editor windows used in VS2015, which should be of interest to all users regardless of their desired language. After that, the book will show how different platforms can get work done faster with VS2015, whether it is for web programming, .NET, or classic C++ application development.

VS2015 lets you use the languages you are comfortable with while you target the platforms needed to support your customers. Taking advantage of the information provided in this book will help you maximize the tools VS2015 provides.