Microsoft releases Visual Studio 2015 for developers with new cross-platform tools

Microsoft makes Visual Studio free and adds new developers tool in an effort to attract developers

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Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 comes with several new developer tools (Source: Microsoft)

Microsoft released new version of Visual Studio in an effort to bring more developers to the Windows platform. As demonstrated during Build 2015, the new version of Visual Studio lets developers to easily port their apps from rival platforms to Windows. Microsoft has also created tools to write code once in Visual Studio and test them across different app platforms.

Microsoft has made the full-fledged version of Visual Studio free to use and supports several other computing platforms and languages. With Visual Studio 2015, Microsoft is bringing improved support for C++ 11/14/17 and tools for Python and other languages. This puts Visual Studio in the league of CodeLite, Eclipse and Netbeans.

“These releases are the next big step in the journey we outlined last November to bring the productivity of Visual Studio and .NET to any developer working on any kind of application while also delivering a new level of innovation in developer productivity for all Visual Studio developers,” said S. Somasegar, Microsoft’ Corporate VP for Developer Division.

With Visual Studio 2015, Microsoft is unifying Debugging and profiling into a single Diagnostic Tools window . This will give insights about rightness and functioning of running application with more context. Also developers can now use LightBulbs, a Roslyn-based tooling that suggests fixes and refactoring of codes pro-actively.

Visual Studio 2015 now lets developers to build mobile ready applications for Android, iOS and Windows and even includes a Visual Studio Emulator for Android, that helps in debugging and testing Android applications.

Visual Studio 2015 will enable developers to build Universal Windows Apps that can work across smartphones, tablets, PCs and even HoloLens and brings integration with game engines like Unity for building cross platfrom games.

Visual Studio 2015 is now available for download with 84 extensions alongside new platform support and several productivity tools.