Alpha, Beta, and Delta

Published 19 April 04 01:42 AM | despos

I've spent five years of my youth studying Greek literature, history, and trying to grab the basics of the ancient, classic Greek language. (No chance to put hands on the modern, today's language. Greek developers, are they different?)

This post, though, is neither about the Greek alphabet, nor about my favorite airline.

The alpha in the title refers to the PDC build of Whidbey. As you may have guessed already, the beta in the title stands for the upcoming (summertime?) Beta 1 of the .NET FX 2.0. What's the delta for?

What's the real delta between the PDC build and the March04 Tech Preview? And, more importantly, what's gonna be the delta between the Tech Preview and the Beta 1?

Unfortunately, I'm not a member of the team and can only share an opinion based on my (limited) hands-on experience. I'm revising the chapters of my "Introducing ASP.NET 2.0" and although I can feel on my skin a fairly large delta between PDC and March04 Tech Preview (BTW--they're giving it away at DevConnections, here in the wonderfully warm Orlando), I can easily manage it.

Tuus far I'd say that Web Parts is the area with more changes--same big picture, several changes in the implementation. Master pages are nearly identical. Data source controls underwent some adjustments and renaming.

As for Web Parts, they made connecting two Web parts on a page really a snap. Thanks guys. Great job!

Thoughts? Measurements?

Comments

# Kevin Daly said on April 18, 2004 09:04 PM:

I've been trying for the life of me to think of a pretext to work "gamma" in there somewhere, but can't think if anything.
Rats.

# Wolfgang said on April 19, 2004 04:06 AM:

Maybe something like gamma-raying the code to see if it holds? :)

I've also spent like 5 years studying Greek. The current language has the same script, but like any other language it has evolved dramatically. I can't read anything Greek anymore... Just doesn't make any sense to me anymore...

I think the biggest improvements needed in Beta1 are stabilization, designer support, ease of use and most of all, documentation. Seems Microsoft is coming 'round on all of those, so that's great.

# Philip Rieck said on April 19, 2004 09:55 AM:

While it may not be all that useful right now, this is the type of info we're trying to capture on http://usingvisualstudio.net/flexwiki ... basically, what's changed from pdc to ctp1 (to ctp2, to beta 1, to... ?)

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