2014-02-03

CodeLens Not Available in Visual Studio 2013 Professional

I just sat through a presentation about Oracle in Visual Studio 2013. I'm mainly a SQL Server guy when I need a database, so didn't take away much that I'll use. However, as I watched the demos, I noticed underneath the method names there were lines in gray saying "1 reference" or "2 references" or whatever. I thought, whoa, what Visual Studio Extension is that? I want that!

So I did a little research on my phone and found that it isn't an extension, it's actually part of Visual Studio 2013. It's called CodeLens, and it actually does quite a bit more than just the reference counts. You just go into the Options dialog and turn it on! Cool!! When I got home, I fired up Visual Studio and went to find the option. It's not there. I do a little more research and find that it's only available in Visual Studio 2013 Ultimate.
Why? Microsoft seems to aim Ultimate at enterprise IT development shops, whereas this is feature that virtually every developer might want to use. I'm not shelling out $13299 for Ultimate to get it, though. If you work for megacorp with a site license for Visual Studio Ultimate, it's a cool feature, but it's not a feature worth an extra $13000+.

Microsoft needs to relent and make this feature available in Professional and Premium in the next service pack.

[And while they are at it, can they make Code Coverage available in Professional as well? It's a Premium only feature.]

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