The launch of Visual Studio 2015 kicked off with the keynote "Any App Any Developer". This might just be a claim too far for many a developer.

There is no doubt that Visual Studio is one of the best IDEs around and there is no doubt that it has evolved from being a monotone Microsoft language product into a polychrome do-anything sort of IDE.

Why exactly? Microsoft seems to be of the opinion that pulling programmers in by any means using any technology will funnel them towards its products - and by "products" we mean mostly Azure. 

With Visual Studio 2015 you can now program in C#, C++, VB, F#, JavaScript, TypeScript, Python and more. It is difficult to say exactly what languages are included because some make use of addins and it isn't possible to say what degree of support each one has - they are not all first class citizens. 

If you have been following the preview editions of Visual Studio you will discover that little has changed, but the one big omission is any out of the box facility for generating Windows 10 apps. Yes, the much publicized Universal App is missing.

Amazingly, despite the "Any App Any Developer" claim, you will have to wait until the July 29th for the launch of Windows 10 to get an SDK that expands Visual Studio's projects to include universal apps. If you try to load an existing Windows 10  universal app project that you have been working on then what you will see is a message that the project isn't compatible with the current version of Visual Studio.

This is very strange and very counterproductive for Microsoft. The idea is supposed to be that you get your loyal programmers to create great things before the operating system is available, not after. If you want to continue to work on universal apps do not upgrade - continue to use the release candidate. 

Having your new IDE offer you Windows 8 app project and Classic Desktop apps but no Windows 10 isn't really the message Microsoft should be giving - even if it is only for a few days. 

The rest of Visuals Studio 2015 is exactly like the release candidate. You can create apps for iOS and Android using Xamarin's development tool chain. You can run Android apps on the Android emulator which is now also available standalone - see Microsoft Android Emulator Standalone For Android Studio.

If you want to know the details of what is in the final version see previous news items on the release candidates - there isn't a lot of point in going over it all again. 

What is new is the surprising news that as well as the free Visual Studio Community edition there are Express editions. Currently there is a VS Express 2015 for Windows Desktop and Express 2015 for Web. What is really surprising is that there is a promised "Coming Soon" edition of Express 2015 for Windows 10. 

Why?

I suppose the Express editions take less disk space and might not overwhelm a beginner with so many choices, but with Community edition there doesn't seem to be any logical reason for keeping the Express editions alive. 

So the bottom line is Visual Studio 2015 - "Any App Any Developer" -

unless you are a Windows 10 app and a Windows 10 Developer.

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