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We have some applications that are being worked upon in .Net 2.0 since long back. I'm recommending my team to move the base from .net 2.0 to .net 3.5sp1 and focus and leverage from C# 3.0 but I'm facing difficulties in doing so. What are the implications of not migrating to .net 3.5 and C# 3.0 ? What are your experiences on this front and what tactics did you use to successfully migrate your team and projects to .net3.5.

this. __curious_geek
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    There are almost no issues in moving from .NET 2.0 to .NET 3.5. .NET 3.5 is just .NET 2.0 SP2 with some additional assemblies you don't use yet. – John Saunders May 05 '10 at 06:59
  • "If it ain't broken, don't fix it" - I prefer to stick to this rule. Unless there is an explicit need to use the 3.5 features, I'd leave the .NET 2.0 apps alone. A different story when it comes to developing new ones. – Srikanth Venugopalan May 05 '10 at 08:47

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There really isn't too much implications with staying in .NET 2.0 land, other than missing out on some improved framework additions liek LINQ to SQL, LINQ to Objects, WCF, WPF etc...

Plus some fun syntax features like anonymous methods, lambda expressions, and extension methods.

Moving to .NET 3.5 is really straight forward. Hats off to the team at MSFT. They made the process very painless.

Alan
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  • The benefits of the new language features in the C# 3.0 compiler are priceless. And since all that runs on the .NET 2.0 runtime (if you deploy System.Core.dll for the LINQ extension methods) you would miss a lot if you wouldn't do this step. – Sebastian P.R. Gingter May 05 '10 at 07:59
  • Just a small nit-pick but anonymous methods will work in 2.0 as long as you compile with 2008. The same goes for auto-implemented properties and object initializers. – ParmesanCodice May 05 '10 at 08:51
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I'd do a two-step migration. First I'd migrate to C# 3.0, while sticking with .NET 2.0. You get most of the benefits of C# 3.0 (including LINQ to Objects via LINQBridge). Once the developers have shifted their mindset to that of LINQ and lambda expressions, fallen in love with extension methods, beautified their code with automatic properties and got hooked on the rest of C# 3.0 features, I'd migrate the application to the .NET Frameworks 3.5 SP1 (which should be effortless, like others have mentioned).

Allon Guralnek
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