ViEmu Blog

I’ve just tested ViEmu/SQL Server with the latest CTP (‘Community Technology Preview’) of SQL Server 2008, codenamed “Katmai”. This latest CTP was released in November, and the final product is expected to be ready some time in early 2008.

The latest build of ViEmu/SQL on the web site (2.1.15) didn’t work right away, but it was just a matter of upgrading the installer to write its registry settings to the specific hive (branch) for the new product. I did just that and it works like a breeze. I’ve built a new revision, ViEmu/SQL 2.1.16, which hooks itself both into SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008. I’ve just uploaded it:

http://www.viemu.com/ViEmuSQL-2.1.16.msi

Remember, you have to manually uninstall the previous version of ViEmu/SQL before installing this one.

I will promote this build to ‘official latest’ after it’s been up for a few days.

It’s very likely that this will be the only change needed to make it work with the final build of SQL Server 2008, but in any case I will watch out for any changes that require upgrading ViEmu. Just drop me a line if you stumble into a problem.

And happy SQLing with vi/vim keybindings!

Someone asked about whether ViEmu would work fine with the new VS2008 in a 64-bit environment. I just tested it today, and it works just fine. The installer complained about a failed operation at the end, with Vista whining about it “requiring elevation”, but I just clicked ok, started VS2008, and ViEmu was there fine. I’m still quite puzzled with Vista’s byzantine and seemingly useless security mechanisms. Hopefully I’ll understand them better as time passes. But meanwhile, all of my products seem to work fine under both Vista x86 and Vista x64. Drop me a line if anything causes trouble.

Yesterday, I posted a funny story about the Vi Gang Sign to my NGEDIT blog:

http://blog.ngedit.com/2007/11/19/the-vi-gang-sign/

I thought I’d link to it from here in case you’re interested (not fully ViEmu-related, but definitely vi/vim-related).

Yesterday, Microsoft released the final (RTM) version of Visual Studio 2008 (codename “Orcas” until now).

As soon as I got the announcement, I downloaded it using MSDN Subscriber access in order to test it with both ViEmu and Codekana. I’ve installed it today, and I can say that both ViEmu and Codekana work perfectly fine with this.

The installer supported the betas/CTP versions so far, so if you’ve installed ViEmu or Codekana in the past few months, they will be right there the first time you start Visual Studio 2008. No hassles at all.

To my C++-accustomed enfvironment, it just looks identical to VS2005 at first sight. Microsoft has announced they’ll release a pretty big update to VS2008 in the first half of 2008, including some improvements to the native C++ compiler and to MFC. But they’re saving the best bits for the next version of Visual Studio (VS2010?), including a totally revamped C++ compiler front-end and a new code model for C++ while editing. Details are not totally clear yet, but it seems this release will finally be compelling to native C++ programmers (unlike VS2005 and VS2008, and if I may say so, even VS.NET 2002/2003 themselves!). I’ll keep watching out on what this all may mean for ViEmu and Codekana.

By the way, the MSDN Subscriber download manager has been updated, from the old but very good Windows native application… to a pretty good but ugly Java-based download manager! I was quite shocked to see the Sun and Java logos come up as soon as I clicked on the download button 🙂

If you start using VS2008 and find any glitch, just let me know by email or through the support page, and I’ll have a look into it.

Welcome to this new blog. I’ve long wanted a blog where I could provide fresh information on ViEmu. I’ve had a blog at blog.ngedit.com for a long time, but I felt that wasn’t a good place for very specific ViEmu information: most of the readers there are more interested in ViEmu as a growing business, and my various other projects.

But there’s still a host of ViEmu-specific things I’ve wanted to write about, and I needed a proper place for them. This is blog is that place, mainly oriented towards current and future users of ViEmu, and I hope you will find the contents useful and enjoyable.

In principle, I will be announcing new releases, detailing development progress, and in general commenting on all things ViEmu. Probably also dropping the occasional rant about how Visual Studio or Word won’t let me do what I want.

As always, I’ll be happy to hear any specific feedback you might have regarding this new resource and ViEmu in general.