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Right on Paschal!

A beta 3 handed out at PDC in LA would certainly go a long way towards assuring users that VSTS2K5 and SQLS2K5 are on the right track towards a November release time-frame.

Also, another matching WinVi beta (beta 2) would be nice. Even nicer would be VPC images of: 1) WinS2K3 with VS2005 beta 3, and 2) WinVi beta2 with VS2005 beta 3 (and, of course, both containing a beta 3 of SQLS2K5). The VPC images would be invaluable in helping to quickly evaluate that major changes like the web project changes are truely usable without first investing 20-30 hours of install (headache) time.

It's great that Microsoft is big enough to allow for some to have the time to produce cute marketing material like:

http://www.escapeyesterworld.com/

but us developers are simply not impressed when "form is put before function", as is in this case!

Instead of all the Microsofties passing the above URL around on their blogs (which is already happening tonight, in an effort to distract us from the real issues at hand? like the broken web project features?), maybe they should review that old Steve Ballmer video that ends in "Developers! Developers! Developers!". I don't think Steve meant for that to be interpreted as "Marketing BS! Marketing BS! Marketing BS!".

Developers and PMs in MS: please tone down your rabid proselytization and leave that up to Marketing.

Marketeers in MS: proselytization only works if one can answer the question "Where's the Beef?". When you promise 3 slices of cheese on it, dang it!, do NOT deliver it with 2 slices of cheese! You should all be made to recite the LensCrafters' quality motto after having allowed stupid decisions to be made (like all the web project feature changes):

"The thrill of a good deal is quickly diminished upon the discovery of poor quality!"

Everyone in MS Marketing has been running around like chickens without heads trying to justify the splitting of the product into 3 SKU's (the three "role-based" versions, Architects, Developers, and Testers) by repeating a "Good Deal!" mantra. This only works if you go from 2 slices of cheese to those 3 slices you promised early on... Customers that only find 2 slices of cheese get those "buyer's remorse" blues, aka "feeling like suckers".

Oh this interesting... Josh Ledgard (a PM in MS) has posted a bunch of insane ideas for change inside of Microsoft. #5 in his list looks to be in the same vain as my previous rant about Marketing's emphasis on "fluff instead of substance" us developers encounter so often. His post is a good read:

http://blogs.msdn.com/jledgard/archive/2005/07/26/TenCrazyIdeas.aspx

Now if we can only get some executive's ear to actually implement Josh's ideas!

If VS is released in November it will be a mistake. There are so many bugs! I've reported 16 in the last two weeks.

It would be nice to have a beta 3 with a Go Live license too. Still plenty of bugs to be fixed!