While WPF had been available as an extension for VS 2005, VS 2008 integrated it seamlessly. It introduced a split-view designer that allowed developers to edit the XAML markup (the XML-based language for UI) while seeing a visual preview of the interface. This was the dawn of modern UI design within the Microsoft stack, moving away from the aging Windows Forms model toward vector-based, hardware-accelerated graphics.
: For the first time, developers could use a single version of Visual Studio to target multiple versions of the .NET Framework (2.0, 3.0, or 3.5), allowing projects to be upgraded without forcing a framework change.
It was the winter of 2007, and I was staring at a splintered mess of C++ code. My tool at the time, Visual Studio 2005, kept crashing when I tried to refactor a legacy module. My project lead, a pragmatic woman named Carol, walked over. "Microsoft just dropped the RTM," she said. "Visual Studio 2008. Install it tonight."
