This is not new, but something that helped me today.

When debugging, you can see the types in scope in the auto’s window:

This shows only the relevant information after expanding the view. One way of improving the experience is by implementing the ToString() method.

While this helps a lot, this means you can’t use the ToString method for something else. Luckily in VS 2008 the DebuggerDisplayAttribute was introduced, this allows you to achieve the same effect and more.

And the code:

[System.Diagnostics.DebuggerDisplay("Date:{Date}, Value:{Value}", Name="{Name}")]
class Item
{
    public string Name { get; set; }

    public DateTime Date { get; set; }

    public int Value { get; set; }
}