Since last year, Microsoft has been creating videos and releasing other preview materials about the upcoming .NET Framework 4.0 release.  The new release is going to contain CSharp C# 4.0 and Microsoft will also release the newest version of their IDE which is going to be called Visual Studio 2010 (big surprise right?).  In this article I’m going to glance over some of the key new features in the .NET Framework 4.0.  I’m excited that there is new stuff just around the corner.

One of the most notable enhancements in .NET 4.0 is the new version of CSharp C# 4.0.  According to Microsoft, C# 4.0 will emphasize dynamic programming.  You will be able to dynamically instantiate and interact with objects which adds flexibility and code simplification in certain circumstances.  You will be able to pass parameters to methods by name instead of having to pass by position.  You will be able to declare default parameter values for methods.  You will be able to program with generics in an easier fashion and with more flexibility.  That can especially prove useful when using LINQ for database programming since generics are involved with LINQ.  There are also some COM Interop enhancement features in C# for dealing with COM interfaces like the Microsoft Office Automation APIs.

Another cool new enhancement that will ship with .NET 4.0 is Velocity.  Velocity is an enhanced and scalable caching framework for applications and it offers:

• Distributed caching using clusters
• Session support without the need for a back-end database

Velocity is going to be really useful for web applications that have a high volume of users and are hosted in web farms.

Here are some additional new improvements in the .NET Framework 4.0:

• Microsoft says that Windows Communication Foundation will also see enhancements to help improve application messaging and enterprise application programming.
• JQuery has been added to the ASP.NET Ajax client tools that will ship with Visual Studio 2010.
• There is a new language created called FSharp F#.  FSharp F# started as a research project but was liked so much that Microsoft decided to formally make it part of the .NET Framework 4.0.

Stay tuned for my next set of articles where I will be discussing the improvements in CSharp C# 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010.  What would you like to see in the new .NET Framework 4.0?