I have been using Visual Studio 2005 for some time now, and I think it's great. Some people really hate it, and some people love it. Although I was privately critical of the new IDE at first, it has really grown on me. It has some great tools that truly speed up repetitive parts of coding (see Code Snippets). Nevertheless, Microsoft has just released yet another tool/library that makes development in Visual Studio 2005 and .NET 2.0 even smoother: the Enterprise Library for .NET Framework 2.0.
The Enterprise Library for the 1.1 Framework was very useful, to put it lightly. The Data Access Application Block and the Security Application Block became two of my best buds. They were always there for me during those never ending nights that were filled with frequent database access, user profiles, and 7-Eleven Big Bite hot dogs. With the 2.0 Enterprise Library, we're going to make our friendship even tighter; maybe I'll even share a bite of the dog.
Version 2 of the Enterprise Library updates the old favorites: the Caching, Cryptography, Data Access, Exception Handling, Logging, and Security application blocks. The Configuration Application Block is missing from the group since .NET 2.0 already provides great configuration capabilities. Other features that the application blocks no longer extend have been removed as well. On the other hand, some of the new inclusions are:
- Data Access blocks that work with any ADO.NET 2.0 managed provider
- Data Access blocks that support dynamic connection strings that can be created through business logic
- Improved logging capabilities that utilize the System.Diagnostics namespace
- A smaller, cleaner Security Application Block
- Configuration functionality that relies upon the System.Configuration namespace
If you can't tell, I have a thing for the Enterprise Library. It's a really powerful tool. Do any of you use the library? If so, do you find it useful? In the case that you'd like to try it out, the Enterprise Library for .NET Framework 2.0 can be downloaded from the Microsoft Download Center. Be forewarned: this download does require registration.
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