Web Application Development with Microsoft Technologies

Excellent news from Scott (Microsoft Technologies General Manager):

We will be able to Debug the .NET Framework 3.5 Source Code ! Yes, as you read it !

When releasing .NET 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008, Microsoft will enable us to download and browse the Source Code of the .NET Base Class Libraries (System, System.IO, System.Collections, System.Configuration, System.Threading, System.Net, System.Security, System.Runtime, System.Text, etc), ASP.NET (System.Web), Windows Forms (System.Windows.Forms), ADO.NET (System.Data), XML (System.Xml), and WPF (System.Windows).  They also aimed to add more libraries in the following months (including WCF, Workflow, and LINQ).  Source code will be released under the Microsoft Reference License (MS-RL).

Visual Studio 2008 will be enabled to download the source code and debug symbols on demand from a Microsoft web server, so when pressing F11 in a breakpoint, we will be able to go through the underlying Microsoft .NET Code, even if you haven’t installed it as a standalone install!

I think this are great news, this will help us to understand those weird behaviors we sometimes don’t understand and then building better applications for our customers. And there won’t be any need of using any Reflection tool and no IL, just a commented and with original var names Source Code!