What are the useful new ASP.NET features in the .NET Framework 3.5?

Question

I've kept up to date with new features in the C# language as it's moved from version 1 through version 3. I haven't done such a good job keeping up to date with ASP.NET. I feel like some of the post version 1 features are not so good (e.g. the AJAX framework) or are just not that useful to me (e.g. the membership framework). Can anyone recommend any new killer ASP.NET features that might have gone unnoticed?

Answer 1

For ASP.NET, you have a lot of improvements:

• split view (code and design)
• faster switching between code and design view
• embedded master pages (one master page in another)
• javascript debugging

Anyway most of the useful stuff are really in the meat of the language, and for .NET 3.5 the new language features for C# 3.0 will be (and yes, I find ALL of them useful)

• anonymous objects
• automatic properties
• object initializers
• collection initializers (inline initialization for collections)
• implicit typing (var keyword)
• lambda expressions
• LINQ
• Extension methods

I might have forgotten a few, but I think this is about most of the new cool and useful stuff.