Jaa

to CTP or not to CTP

  • Artikkeli

We just recently released the June 2005 Community Tech Preview (CTP) for VSTS. It’s been an interesting process because this is the first CTP for VSTS where we simply picked up one of our daily builds, made sure it passed some build verification tests (BVTs) and cut it on to a DVD. All previous VSTS CTPs were the result of weeks of testing and stabilizing for the purposes of refreshing our dogfood system. As part of that we would fix blocking bugs, validate the installation guide, have a few folks that had never installed VSTS try it unassisted to make sure the instructions were clear, update the known issues document to help point out the land mines, etc, etc. 

For this release we did none of that. There are some among us that believe that without all this stabilization that we shouldn’t release our bits. There are others that say that providing timely and predictable snapshots of our current state is helpful to our customers because they can see what we’re doing and provide us timely feedback. They might even see that their bug has been recently fixed. 

Of course, we’re all just supposing now since we don’t have your input. So, I consider this June CTP as a bit of an experiment to see what value these frequent builds of VSTS can be to our community. I certainly wouldn’t recommend moving any active development to this build but maybe you’re like my buddy Etienne who likes picking up the latest and greatest just to sniff it out and see how we’re doing. He sends us good feedback even on daily builds and perhaps you will too. 

It seems to me it's all about setting expectations. If we can, ahead of time, tell you what we've done to evaluate the bits before we released them (run BVTs, using internally, full test pass, etc), then you have enough information to make intelligent choices about which build to download. Also along this line of thinking, one thing that we’re discussing is improving the ability for you to rate our releases so that there can be a reliable feedback loop visible to all. The thought is that if we had a number of recent builds to pick from, providing a report of user ratings would help everyone navigate to find the build that has the right level of freshness and known stability for their purposes.

I’m really curious what your thoughts are on this whole CTP thing so please let me hear from you.

Thanks,
jeff

Comments

  • Anonymous
    June 17, 2005
    I can't speak via the VSTS, but the professional version won't even
    install properly on a clean machine. (SQL Express fails with a
    dependency on .NET) I had to pull up an image with Beta 2, remove most
    of beta 2 (leaving SQL Express & VSS), and then install the June CTP
    just to get it to install.

    I think there should be a minimum level of quality, or a good list of
    gotchas to make it easier to test things.

  • Anonymous
    June 17, 2005
    I would rather that the VS2005 and SQL Server 2005 CTP's stay in sync, i.e. the June or August CTP work with each other, use the same version of the 2.0 Framework, etc.

    You guys (VS and SQL Teams) need to go through some practice evolutions of releasing compatible versions before you go RTM. Just my two cents...

  • Anonymous
    June 26, 2005
    As I mentioned before, we’re in the process of updating our internal version of VSTS with updated bits. ...

  • Anonymous
    July 04, 2005

    Carl Franklin has posted the .NET Rocks Show #117 with members of the Team System team ⊕
    Chris...

  • Anonymous
    July 19, 2005
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 26, 2007
    As I mentioned before , we’re in the process of updating our internal version of VSTS with updated bits.

  • Anonymous
    June 13, 2009
    話題の小向美奈子ストリップを隠し撮り！入念なボディチェックをすり抜けて超小型カメラで撮影した神動画がアップ中！期間限定配信の衝撃的映像を見逃すな