I know that a few users have this sofware, so this topic is for discussion of what peoples expericence is of it.

Mine is that it works well like VS03 .NET but can crash a bit at random points, but as a M$ beta goes, its very stable!

Well, it is my first ever Visual Studio, and I haven't used it much, but I do like it.

I think it is quite easy to use and also helped me learn Flash AcionScript (I used VS before flash), as the commands are very similar.

Yes, the commands are very similar as you said, and the GUIs have got friendlier over the releases, and IIRC the final should be released sometime within the next year (well, SQL server 05 is being released either next month or the one after)

I think the GUI is daughnting to someone who sees it for the first time, but it's actually pretty simple, just has lots fo tools (like a photo editing app).

You wouldnt know this, but the GUI for VS6 was even more daughnting as on the 'pallet' there was only 12 buttons, you had to find everything else from a dialog box (sort of like that from ppt when you insert file in older versions)

Also, VS6 had different apps for each language, whereas in VS7 and VS8 there are all one app so you can easily switch from one language to another without the need to open seperate apps

Right, I see. It does sound a bit stupid to have things hidden away, are you sure you couldn't bring up more boxes?

Also, the intergration thing - things work much better when they are intergrated, unless they are completely different applications.