A good friend of mine, and work colleague Jason Stangroome alerted me to the fact that JetBrains ReSharper 3.0 Beta has recently started. Possibly one of the biggest steps forward is its complete VB support. In the past VB support was limited to very few features. There is now a serious alternative to Refactor Pro! for VB addicts. Other things of note include:
I currently use MZ-Tools for code templating at the moment, its a great set of odds and ends to help you develop in Visual Studio, and the templating functionality is quite useful. The best part is that its dirt cheap. I'm also working on a better snippet interface for Visual Studio, which I'll brag more about when there is somethig to show.
For VB projects I have Refactor installed, which is an absolute boon, however I have tried many a time to install CodeRush trials to give it whirl, and have been left with nothing but frustration.
ReSharper is definitely worth owning, having used 2.0 and 2.5 for fleeting trial periods, I'm already a big fan. I havent been able to justify the cost, since most of the present work I do is in VB. Now that 3.0 is touting VB support, that just became the justification I needed.
Can you tell I'm excited? Im looking forward to getting hooked on this tool, apparently its as addictive as crack, just better for your health.