Introducing Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch
Somaseger announced yesterday the introduction of a new product called Visual Studio LightSwitch. If you were a developer from the 1990's like me then you likely spent time with some of time working with products like Microsoft Access or Microsoft Visual FoxPro. These development tools pre-baked much of the user interface and data access programming making development easier. These tools were esspecially great for prototyping. You could get an application built and in front of your customers/clients quickly providing early feedback and design and features before you invested a ton of development. Of course, this left you with having to explain to your customer/client why you need so much additional time to complete the project.
Applications built using LightSwitch can target WinClients, WebClients, and Windows Azure. You can pull from various data sources like SQL Server, SQL Azure, SharePoint and others. You can see how easy it is to build a LightSwitch app by visiting Jason Zanders blog.
Microsoft is opening this up to a public Beta on August 23rd. This is a product AppDev will keep an eye on to consider in our library of learning materials. If you get a chance to download and review it, please post your comments (good or bad) about the experience.