In case you live in a cave, or you only peruse my blog, then you not have heard. Visual Studio 2005 (Whidbey) has been released. It's available for MSDN subscribers, and you can download the official framework from Microsoft.

This has been a long time coming. I remember heading to Microsoft to get a preview of Whidbey in November of 2003, which, of course, was after everyone got their first real taste at PDC in the summer of 2003. It's amazing how long this took, but I personally think it is worth the wait. I've been using Beta 2 for a few months and RC1 for a few weeks, and it's been very stable. And the feature set is stellar.

Anyway, if you're an MSDN subscriber, it's time to start downloading!