ScottD's Musings

Dear Microsoft: Don't limit Unit Testing & Code Coverage to VS 2005 Team System

Thanks to Rob Caron for featuring these links on the "What's New with Team System" blog entry:

Regarding Unit Testing & Code Coverage availability in Whidbey (Visual Studio 2005), these features are currently planned for inclusion with Visual Studio 2005 Team System, in the following versions:

• Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Test Edition
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Developer Edition

Which means that it will NOT be available in the following editions:

• Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Standard Edition
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Architect Edition.

Here is a link to Microsoft's VS 2005 Feature Comparison

Rob's blog post, has links to the following additional posts

• http://www.peterprovost.org/archive/2004/06/13/1410.aspx
• http://weblogs.asp.net/CSchittko/archive/2004/10/31/250375.aspx
• Jason Anderson's Q&A on Unit Testing in VSTS

If you've spent any time with TDD, or Whidbey Beta 1 Refresh - you know that this is a tremendous feature that simply does not require "team" to perform.  Individual developers will benefit greatly from these features.  Yes, I do understand that there are open source projects that help fill the gap (NUnit, CSUnit, MBUnit, NUnitAddIn among others).  Personally, I like what Microsoft built into the Beta 1 Refresh, and believe that these features should be available to all editions of the product.

If you believe that these "great" features should be part of the UI for all editions of Visual Studio 2005 (and not just the top 2 tiers of the product), then provide feedback!

• Make a stand, sign up on Peter Provost's online petition
• I created a "Suggestion" at the Visual Studio 2005 Product Feedback Center.  Let's see where this goes!!!!
  http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/ProductFeedback/viewFeedback.aspx?feedbackId=FDBK17344