Ever since Microsoft released Visual Studio in 1997 it has been the leading integrated development environments for the Windows platform. With the release in September of Visul Studio 2012, the suite moves into a new era. The question is, is it better?
Read this exhaustive review by Rick Grehan and you'll find out. As he notes in his conclusion, "if you want to do Windows development -- particularly Windows 8 and RT development -- then Visual Studio is really the only game in town."
And it's become a huge application.
Microsoft says the entire interface has been changed with the goal of streamlining workflows. This, of course, means that tools won't necessarily be in their familar places so getting to know WS 2012 will likely mean a lot of time learning it and the new capabilities.