Microsoft has pushed out the launch of VS 2010 from the original March 22, 2010 date. In announcing the delay of the release, Soma and Scottgu talk of “a few weeks” rather than giving a new fixed date.
This is good news in terms of product quality because the performance just isn’t there in Beta 2. I expressed the fear that Visual Studio 2010 would be the bloated, sluggish “Vista” of the development world if the responsiveness wasn’t brought back to VS 2008 levels.
Microsoft is very conscious of the issues and reports many performance “wins” post-Beta 2. Unfortunately, very few people outside MS have had a chance to evaluate the progress. Well, we’ll get that chance in February with what they’re calling a ‘Release Candidate”.
Actually, I’d have opted for a January Beta 3 rather than an RC in February. To me, an RC is an announcement that ‘we intend to ship this thing unless there’s something so bad that nobody will buy it’. A ‘beta’ tag tells testers that it’s still okay to report issues and get them fixed.
Overall it’s very encouraging that the developer division is more wired to quality than to a ship date. Let’s hope that what comes out is worth the wait.