NuGet package manager is one of the newer features that has come to Visual Studio startig from Visual Studio 2010 SP1. The feature enables you to download and utilize popular open source packages into your projects. The NuGet packge manager is added to Visual Studio via the Extesion Manager,
Once installed, you get an extension to the context menu when right-clicking an project, called "Manage NuGet packages", in this menu you will get access to the entire NuGet package gallery. This makes adding an framework to your project very easy, and enables you to update the projectfiles, as soon as a new release is released.
Important and interresting packages could be:
- jQuery
- EntityFramework
- jQuery UI
- Modernizr
- ELMAH
- Microsoft SQL Server Compact Edition
- ASP.NET Optimization - Bundeling
- log4net
- NHibernate
- knockoutjs
- Lucene.net
NuGet Package Manager is default installed in Visual Studio 2012, and its a nice tool for adding some of those frameworks to your projects.
References:
Scott Hanselman: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/IntroducingNuGetPackageManagementForNETAnotherPieceOfTheWebStack.aspx
Scott Gu: http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2011/02/14/nuget-1-1-released.aspx
Phil Haack: http://haacked.com/archive/2011/02/12/nuget-1-1-released.aspx