ReSharper 4 Beta and EAP Program
Could the powers at be let us know when (and how) we can sign up for this?
I think many of us are moving rapidly into VS2008 and could really do with dealing with the issues raised by the new syntax even if we don't get smart help with things at this stage.
I have no problem being a guinea pig!
Regards
Michael
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Hello Michael,
First public EAP build of ReSharper 4 is planned to happen sometime in December.
However, we may consider allowing limited group of early adopters to participate
in even earlier testing, in exchange to detailed feedback at regular basis.
This is not decided yet, actually it has just popped up into my mind :)
Sincerely,
Ilya Ryzhenkov
JetBrains, Inc
http://www.jetbrains.com
"Develop with pleasure!"
MH> Could the powers at be let us know when (and how) we can sign up for
MH> this?
MH>
MH> I think many of us are moving rapidly into VS2008 and could really
MH> do with dealing with the issues raised by the new syntax even if we
MH> don't get smart help with things at this stage.
MH>
MH> I have no problem being a guinea pig!
MH>
MH> Regards
MH> Michael
IIya
Thanks for the prompt response.
As for the possibility of and early adopters group...
::forms orderly queue:: ( I'm a Brit, all queues have to be orderly )
Cheers
Michael
Ilya-
That would be fantasic. We've also stepped up and moved into .net 3.5 to
gain LINQ and some of the new controls for our development--Microsoft's Go
Live license has helped, I believe, push this "beta" into semi-production
and tinkering environments. R# 3.5 is great, but I've found I spend a great
deal of time toggling features on and off to use the new syntax and functionality.
Thanks for any consideration of an early EAP or even, as Michael said, some
guinea pig time for those of us brave (or crazy) enough to be developing
on a beta platform. (_)
-dl
--
David R. Longnecker
http://blog.tiredstudent.com
MH>> Could the powers at be let us know when (and how) we can sign up
MH>> for this?
MH>>
MH>> I think many of us are moving rapidly into VS2008 and could really
MH>> do with dealing with the issues raised by the new syntax even if we
MH>> don't get smart help with things at this stage.
MH>>
MH>> I have no problem being a guinea pig!
MH>>
MH>> Regards
MH>> Michael
^ volunteers for EAP program * ;)
Ilya Ryzhenkov wrote:
great news!!!
"Ilya Ryzhenkov" <orangy@jetbrains.com> wrote in message
news:76a2bd0b144e488c9ca7795211cae@news.intellij.net...
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I definitely want to be in on the ultra-EAP if there is one... I love
Resharper and I've been working exclusively with VS2008 for the last 4
months and will likely continue to do so - and I miss Resharper!
Thanks,
Justin
Ilya Ryzhenkov wrote:
Please add me to ReSharper 4.0 EAP! I love it.
Greetings,
I'd like to get in on this opportunity, as well...
I guess I'll just set up my tent and camp out in the queue.
- Richard
Dear Queue Members,
It sounds like working with so early bits of ReSharper 4.0 seems to be interesting
to some people. I'd like to open discussion to settle down rules of the game,
so we can decide if we can start this experiment.
We usually open normal EAP program, when product is quite usable already.
We sometimes break things during EAP builds, but in general the product is
already in somewhat good state during early access program. What we are talking
about here is product which is actively being changed, and it will break
things all the time. There could be two versions of the same refactoring
as it is being updated to C# 3.0, or there could be two File Structure tool
windows (there are, in current builds), or whatever else. Most likely, none
of the settings will be updated automatically on install, some options could
be missed, some GUI could be absent and there would be hard-coded settings
suitable just for ReSharper team. All that sort of havoc.
Another point I'd like to stress, is that we are not going to support these
bits in any way. It would take too much precious time. You are on your own,
if we open so called "ultra-EAP". Of course, it will be limited and closed
- no public builds. Do you really want to have all these problems?
On the other hand, we install ReSharper builds every day and can work with
them. If something breaks completely, making ReSharper unusable, we usually
fix it during a day or two. And we already have partial C# 3.0 support! We
actually already develop ReSharper 4.0 in C# 3.0 subset we support. Namely,
we have all sorts of analysis and quickfixes for implictly typed locals (vars),
support extension methods (including auto-import completion), object and
collection initializers to some extent, and automatic properties should be
ready very soon. On the other hand, we don't have any LINQ support yet, no
anonymous types support, no partial methods and lambdas are in progress.
We really want early feedback from people who already use C# 3.0 and Visual
Studio 2008. We will need to know what project you are working on, what tools
do you use -- we need integral picture of how you organize your work with
ReSharper 4.0 and C# 3.0. Probably, feedback should better be organized in
some sort of "reports", something like "my week with ultra-EAP build of ReSharper
4.0 and C# 3.0". But that reports shouldn't be public, we don't want to leak
information before things are well defined. I think you can write in your
blog just something like "I use ReSharper 4.0 ultra-EAP and it rulez!" :)
To summarize this all, I'm not sure if we should do ultra-EAP at all, provided
we plan to open normal EAP pretty soon, in about two months. Could you please
elaborate more on this topic, please? Why do you want ultra-EAP? Are you
going to accept described trade-offs? What are your projects and how do you
use C# 3.0? If you like, you can send me personal email to orangy@jetbrains.com,
if you don't want to post this in public newsgroup.
Thank you for your interest in ReSharper 4.0!
Sincerely,
Ilya Ryzhenkov
JetBrains, Inc
http://www.jetbrains.com
"Develop with pleasure!"
Ilya Ryzhenkov wrote:
Hello Ilya,
First of all I think it is great that you are considering such a Ultra-EAP.
But you are also right, when you say, it has to be discussed and be
planned well.
Members of a UEAP should be aware that they don't participate because
they can get ReSharper support in VS2008 very early. The main reason to
participate is to help JetBrains produce a superb product.
So everyone should commit to sending frequent reports or be actively
supportive someway.
Ilya, you said there will be broken things within the EAP builds. So,
how will the testers know which defects are already known or are
intentional. After all EAP members will send in bug reports and the
like. But reporting those issues are not very useful and can cause extra
work for you. Perhaps after releasing a build you should list parts of
RS the testers should take a closer look at.
Ciao,
Jens
--
http://www.jenswinter.com
Hello Jens,
JW> Ilya, you said there will be broken things within the EAP builds.
JW> So, how will the testers know which defects are already known or are
JW> intentional. After all EAP members will send in bug reports and the
JW> like. But reporting those issues are not very useful and can cause
JW> extra work for you. Perhaps after releasing a build you should list
JW> parts of RS the testers should take a closer look at.
Good point. Let us first sort things a bit. I can identify the following
kinds of feedback off my head:
Exceptions. Those are simple, just submit them into JIRA and get notifications
when they get fixed. The only thing to note here is "Don't send same exceptions
in a row". When you receive exception, take a note about in which conditions
it happened and do not submit exceptions which happen in the same conditions,
just to avoid duplicates. However, submit if not sure. For example, we currently
have frequent exception during solution load, something about "quote exceeded",
which doesn't prevent ReSharper from working later. There is no point in
submitting it each time you open solution.
Bugs and Features. Something doesn't work right, as you feel it, that is.
Or you think it should do more, or in different way. One way is to accumulate
them for weekly report, and send to UltraEAP coordinator (probably, me).
In response, coordinator will verify each bug and create JIRA requests for
each that needs it, then send you reply with links, so you can subscribe
to issue notifications. Or, may be we will create private page in our wiki,
accessible to UEAP members, where coordinator will post summary for each
reported bug along with link to JIRA record. This way all UEAP members will
have full information about things being identified. Well, it may be as simple
as UEAP wiki space, where UEAPers and team members can discuss and communicate,
thus eliminating the need for collecting reports during the report period.
General development progress. Here we will simply notify UEAP members about
what has been done lately, so you can check it out. As we have weekly planning
cycle, most likely updates will be delivered weekly, as well as builds.
What do you think?
Sincerely,
Ilya Ryzhenkov
JetBrains, Inc
http://www.jetbrains.com
"Develop with pleasure!"
Hello all,
There are also some more things we have to decide on:
Keep "Ultra Team" small. I think we want to start with 2-3 ultra members
for each major technology, like ASP.NET, WPF, Compact Framework, Silverlight,
etc.
Feature coverage. People usually use no more than 50% of ReSharper features,
so we want people who use various features in various scenarios.
Policy for membership. We want active members, we want people to take time
to prepare repro for the problem if we can't, to attach debugger if nothing
else helps, to prepare performance or memory snapshot in case of trouble,
so we can nail the problem down. I don't know how strict the policy should
be, though. Personally, I want it to be an honor to be ReSharper Ultra Team
member :) Back in the days when I was not working in JetBrains, I would treat
it as such.
Non-Disclosure Agreement. I don't know if we can avoid formal NDA signing,
but anyway we don't want information about ultra-early builds to leak into
the public. Not that we don't want people to know about upcoming versions,
we just want to keep some things in the kitchen.
If we work through all the obstacles and form "ReSharper Ultra Team" (I like
the name!), I think we can come up with the reward to all the members ;)
But currently, it is just nice idea which may or may not become the real
thing.
By the way, does anyone know about existing groups of such kind with open
information about policy, membership, NDA and such? I'd like to read success
stories. Thanks.
Sincerely,
Ilya Ryzhenkov
JetBrains, Inc
http://www.jetbrains.com
"Develop with pleasure!"
I have worked (am working) with a few closed alpha/beta/pre-release groups all of which have required a NDA although most are pretty simple (these are mostly for applications though and not tools but the distinction shouldn't be important).
They invariably use a separated bug reporting mechanism and forums that are readable by the testers to try to cut down duplication.
Also most are delivering weekly tests to the group.
e.g. this week we want you to do this and this and then say what you get/think about that.
That way they target the external resources on specific areas.
Membership is usually via either a known group who have worked with them before or on application with a short questionnaire. Often it is hard to find a group with anything like a suitable skill set so numbers aren't important (any testing is better than no testing philosophy). Unfortunately (?) you have an eager following. :)
As much as it hurts me to say this...
I would decide if you will gain anything from delivering product this early,
if you do...
Knock up a web site with a simple login that makes someone accept a simple NDA to enter (this is how at least one MS group does it). Put links on to take us to the relevant build, list of tests you want us to do and somewhere for us to respond (making clear what you need back from us). If you aren't getting the mix for the testing you require announce that you are looking for some people doing xyz on the blog and add a few in. Eventually you should get a reasonable group with a cross section of skills (you don't want all experts as they never test the basic things)
After a month or so see how it is going and tweak it if required to focus more on areas you are interested in.
You could view this as a pilot for similar groups for your other products.
By the end of it you will either have gained some useful feedback and learnt a lot about getting people involved or you will no never to bother again!
Although I am probably adding my name to a very long list, I would like to help with the ultra eap program, although I currently only use 2008 beta 2 at home,
where I have a hobby project to do with film lists etc. which is using as many of the new features of 2008 as I can think of!!
Having an external group of users is probably a very good idea, as we probably use R# in ways that are not expected, as long as the reporting process is kept as easy as it is for the EAP program, then I can see it bringing nothing but good.
how much use of R# over a week would you expect from a ultra member?
would there be a format for the weekly report?
I would like to work with the ReSharper 4 UEAP if it becomes available. I am using VS 2008 regularly to develop a social networking site as well as an upcoming open source project related to ReSharper plugins. I have been coding my ASP.NET site in a data/biz/presentation pattern and have favoured using LINQ and other C# 3.0 code in the data tier so I can still use it for the non-affected code without having to constantly disable R# when I need to work with C# 3.0, but I would like to test it out.
I've been diving pretty heavily into the C# 3.0 language features as well, and I'd really prefer not to have to shut off ReSharper (or see a screen full of red squigglies :)). I'd be thrilled to have earlier access to the R# 4.0 EAP.