The Visual Basic 2008 language specification has been posted. It’s not 100% totally officially ready, as it needs some copy edits, but it is available for download here.

A short list of what appears in the language specification, as well as an apology for not getting the documentation out sooner, appears here on Paul Vick’s blog. (Vick also notes that some XML versions have been added since the previous version of the VB 2008 spec was released.)

Numerous Visual Basic 2008 features, such as anonymous types, extension methods and lambda expressions, were introduced to accommodate LINQ. This is the Language Integrated Query and, as its name implies, it brings SQL, XML and other data queries right into VB and C#.

Considerable help with LINQ in VB 2008 is available in the Visual Basic How Do I video series devoted to LINQ. Since much of that is concerned with client application development, Paul Yuknewicz has put together a lengthy blog post, LINQ for the Web using VB, over on the Visual Basic Team Blog.

That’s all for now.

XAML, the Extensible Application Markup Language, is the code-behind language for Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight applications. The idea is that application designers can create the whiz-bang graphics they want and hand them over to developers as XAML files that the developers need not touch (or “ruin,” depending on whom you ask).

A couple bloggers have had a chat recently about programming with XAML. They focus primarily on using XAML with WPF — not surprising, since, in relative terms, it has been around a lot longer than Silverlight. Both articles are worth a read, especially for those just getting started with XAML programming.

Tomer Shamam loves XAML, particularly the way it separates design from code, is hierarchical and is able to define a graphic using fewer lines of code than do static languages.

On the other hand, Omer van Kloeten does not love XAML. It doesn’t make good enough use of the .NET 2.0 CLR, it adds complexity (in the form of new syntax for binding and references, a different parser and compiler, and new layers), and the tooling support for both developers and designers is a bit immature.  

Have any of you out there had XAML experiences that mirror those of either Shamam or van Kloeten? Feel free to weigh in.

The first set of Power Tools for Visual Studio 2008 is now available. Specifically, this release targets Team Foundation Server.

Ed Hintz of Microsoft has blogged about the TFS Power Tools release, which includes tools such as Find in Source Control and Open in Windows Explorer. (Insert joke about monkey wrench and screwdriver here.)

Meanwhile, you can download the TFS Power Tools release here on MSDN and pose questions in the TFS Power Tools and Add-ons forum also on MSDN.

Having burned more AA batteries than I can count whilst playing Tetris for Game Boy, I would never withhold Tetris news from anyone. And is there is Sudoku news, too? Well, then, I’m a joyous child on Boxing Day.*

Blogger Carlos Aguilar Mares has created versions of both Tetris and Sudoku that are compatible with Windows Mobile v5 and v6. For these games, as for all good things, necessity was the mother of invention: “During my last two business trips (to Barcelona for TechEd and Mexico for ReMix) I was way too bored on the plane.”

The blog entry Sudoku and Tetris Game for Windows Mobile has some details about compatibility and how to install the games. Really enterprising folks can go straight to http://www.carlosag.net/mobile/ and download the games there. Enjoy!

(*Boxing Day, for those unaware, is a public holiday for many British Commonwealth countries, with origins that date back to feudal times. It refers to the packaging of gifts and not to pugilism.)

(UPDATED Jan. 7 — Another plane trip, another set of games from Carlos Aguilar Mares. Over the Christmas holiday, he created Backgammon and Connect4 for Windows Mobile. His recommendation after this project? “[Y]ou do want to download the Windows Mobile 6 SDK if you are going to target that version (which is what my cell phone has), since it will add new Visual Studio 2005 Project Templates and new Emulator images, which will help you a lot.̶

There’s Ajax and there’s Ajax. There is Ajax in the Java world where it’s no-holds-barrred, Katy-bar-the-door, and find-yourself-a-framework-or-die. Then there is Ajax in the .NET world where Microsoft created its own Ajax framework which is offered to you  as part of the company’s other Web development offerings.  

However, Microsoft’s Ajax framework is not the sole Ajax framework available to .NET developers. And at least one blogger thought it was worthwhile to query the Web audience to see how .NET Ajax framworks stacked up.

Italian Simone Chiaretta, .NET developer and Subtext core member, was spurred in his quest by the recent Richard Monson-Haefel Ajaxian survey on Ajax framework use, but wanted to see what things looked like for .NET. Chiaretta found —  lo-and- behold  – that Microsoft’s ASP.NET Ajax was tops by far among responders.He writes:

… among the 95% of the .NET developers that said they are using some flavor of Ajax either in production, development or prototype, the most-used Ajax toolkit is ASP.NET Ajax, with 73,7%, followed by the Ajax Control Toolkit which is used by almost half of the .NET developer that are using Ajax.

Despite, Microsoft’s predominance, there is percolating use of other Ajax frameworks amid the .NET crew. Interestingly, among ASP.NET users cited in Monson-Haefel’s survey, ASP.NET Ajax use is represented by 36.3% of responders, and is in a statistical dead heat with Prototype and jQuery open-source alternatives. Writes Burton Group’s Monson-Haefel:

What is interesting about the Ajax market is that it’s more diversified in 2007 than it was in 2005 - the number of toolkits keep growing and jostling position in terms of usage.

Check out the .NET Ajax Survey, the Monson-Haefel Ajax survey, and filter of Monson-Haefel’s data.