Is SQL Server 2005 ready for prime time? Maybe, but the docs aren't.

At my company we've been working with SQL Server 2005, and in particular Analysis Services 2005, for the better part of a year. One of the new features of SSAS 2005 is Analysis Management Objects (AMO) - a managed class library for administering SSAS. AMO let's you define cubes, measures, and dimensions, process cubes, monitor traces, etc. It's very powerful, but we've struggled with it because through the entire beta program, it was virtually undocumented. The method and class names were listed in the documentation, but there were no descriptions for anything, nor was there a developer's guide for how to use the classes.

I'd always assumed that MS would flesh out the documentation by the time the product shipped. Apparently I was wrong. When I installed the RTM bits, I was surprised to find that the AMO documentation was still just a skeleton. For examples, look here, or here. Note the rather conspicuous blanks in virtually all of the description columns. I don't recall Microsoft ever shipping with such gaping holes in the documentation (at least, not in the .NET era). It's surprising that a company with the resources of Microsoft would do so.

To be fair, SSAS 2005 is a killer product - a huge leap forward in OLAP capabilities. Over the last year, I've really come to appreciate the power of OLAP and BI, and I suspect SSAS 2005 will bring OLAP much more into the mainstream (if you're not down with OLAP yet, I strongly recommend you take a look - it's hugely powerful stuff). Hopefully Microsoft will flesh out the documentation in the near future, to make it easier for ISVs to take advantage of.

Update - via Chris Webb, Microsoft released a December update to the SQL Server 2005 Documentation (available here). In this release they've started fleshing out the AMO documentation at last. It's not complete, but it's a step in the right direction.


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