Posted on 03/15/2006 2:10:38 PM PST by ShadowAce
If Paul Flessner and his SQL Server team have their way, traditional beta releases may soon be a thing of the past. And they aren't the only Softies who are pushing to overhaul the way Microsoft builds software to more closely emulate the open source process.
Consider the beta.
Beta testing has been the cornerstone of the software development process for Microsoft and most other commercial software makers for as long as they've been writing software. But if certain powers-that-be in Redmond have their way, betas may soon be a thing of the past for Microsoft, its partners and its customers.
What's behind the shift?
Beta builds are predictable milestones by which external and internal testers have measured their progress toward the delivery of final code. Betas are typically few and far between, and feedback on them tends to be late and sometimes lame. But they are nonetheless a known quantity, and one that software developers, OEM partners and customers of all sizes rely on in gauging when and how to support a new product.
Open source turned the traditional software development paradigm on its head. In the open source world, testers receive frequent builds of products under development. Their recommendations and suggestions typically find their way more quickly into developing products. And the developer community is considered as important to writing quality code as are the "experts" shepherding the process.
Until fairly recently, Microsoft championed the way it "made the sausage" as the best way. But in the last year or so, there's been a noticeable change in Redmond's rhetoric. Top Microsoft brass have been wondering aloud whether big-bang betas are the best way to develop and test software. Might there be a better alternative?
Microsoft's Engineering Excellence unit, headed by 20-year company veteran Jon DeVaan, is overseeing a project to reengineer the way software is developed inside Microsoft. DeVaan, a member of Microsoft's central Business Leadership Team, manages the engineering standards used to create Microsoft's software products.
With feedback from the Windows Core Operating Systems Division (COSD), Office, development tool and applications units, DeVaan is spearheading a fundamental change to its engineering process. As part of this initiative, Microsoft's major product units will do more "virtual teaming" across division lines, bringing together developers from multiple units to build a new product or subsystem, and then disassembling them again once the project is completed. At the same time, these teams will rely on CTPs (or whatever Microsoft ultimately ends up calling the more frequent test builds) as opposed to betas, to speed up the product development and testing cycles.
In January, Jim Allchin, co-president of Microsoft's Platform Products & Services Division, hinted at this change. Allchin acknowledged that the Vista team was relying on more frequent CTP test builds, as opposed to traditional betas, in its final development stages for Windows Vista.
The SQL Server team also favored CTPs over traditional beta releases in the final throes of SQL Server 2005 testing and development, said Paul Flessner, Microsoft senior vice president of Server Applications. In fact, the SQL team decided to forego Beta 3 of SQL Server 2005 because developers felt the CTP feedback they were receiving was solid and rapid enough to push product out the door, Flessner said.
Going forward, if Flessner prevails with what he describes as the "SQL Server Reengineering Initiative," it's going to be a beta-free world for SQL Server developers and testers.
"If I had my way, there'd never be another (SQL Server) beta," Flessner told Microsoft Watch. "The boss doesn't always get his way, but we are definitely leaning toward this."
This change of heart isn't coming out of the blue. The open source development process has influenced Microsoft's thinking, Flessner and other Microsoft officials have admitted. But there are other factors at work, as well.
First and foremost, Microsoft divisions that have piloted CTP programs – primarily the Windows, SQL Server and Visual Studio units -- and its testers have found CTPs to be a more efficient way to exchange with testers code and feedback on it.
In the last 18 months that SQL Server 2005 was in development, Flessner's team "really got in the CTP groove," he said.
"CTPs helped me keep the engineering team in a branch where we could ship," said Flessner. "It kept the team from checking things in until they were of high quality. We had a very sophisticated branching system and very high-quality reverse integrations that got integrated back into our main builds. That was a super-powerful thing."
With "Katmai," the next major version of SQL Server, Flessner is planning to move to a pure CTP/no beta model, he said.
Granted, what the SQL Server team labeled a "CTP" was different from what the Visual Studio or Windows team labeled a CTP. The Visual Studio team, which established the de facto definition of CTP as a "snapshot of a product at a given point in time," released CTP test builds that were not of beta quality, officials acknowledged. The Windows team complicated matters, by releasing December, Febraury (and soon, April) CTPs of Vista that officials also described as Beta 2 builds. The SQL team, for its part, did full quality checks on each and every CTP it issued last year.
Because of the differences in terminology around CTPs, some kind of new nomenclature is likely for these test builds, Flessner said. Regardless of the label, however, the impact will be similar to that of CTPs as they exist today, he said.
"When a feature is ready, it will go into the product," Flessner explained. "I'd like to be in a situation where we can ship (a new release or update) in 120 days, due to market requirements, the team being tired or whatever."
Flessner said he expects the new engineering process to have an immediate and beneficial effect on product ship cycles for everything from the next version of SQL Server, to WinFS, the Windows File System code.
"I'll be able to go to a 24- to 36-month (new release) cycle," he said. "I couldn't do it without these engineering changes."
Let me know when they rethink the horrid layout that is the Windows UI.
(By UI, I do not mean the Aero Glass theme.)
"Microsoft Rethinks the Beta Process"
So they will actually complete beta testing PRIOR to selling their products. Cool twist for MS.
Microsoft takes a clue from open source. Linus was right, it is a superior development model. I like that I can download nightly builds of Firefox if I want to and test it out.
OK. Let's take bets on how the spin will be spun.... :)
> OK. Let's take bets on how the spin will be spun.... :)
Actually, I don't give a rat's a$$ whether MS spins it this way or that -- as long as the change improves their software.
I work professionally on Windows systems (I prefer Linux, NetBSD, and Mac) and would be thrilled if their next OS was actually any good. I've left all my personal development and production Win systems at 2000-Pro because I can't stand XP, and expect to be forced to go directly to Vista because of the support cut-offs.
So I don't care if MS says that Steve Ballmer _invented_ the new development model and Linus stole it.... so long as it improves the stuff they're selling.
BTW, the software company I work for uses the frequent-build model, and it works -really- well. Betas are so-o-o 1980's...
I'm a Gamma tester for Microsoft.
oh tarnished one, lay of the cool-aid. this stuff is too much even for you.
LMAO at golden eagle
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Senator Fattecat (R-WA) is pushing for a ban on
Finnish-produced software. His chief of staff, Ms. Dee Septive, has
published a 200-page report revealing "the Helsinkian Underground", a
Finnish world domination plot hatched in 1943.
The Fattecat expose describes Finland's recent scheme involving free
software. "Linux, originally called Freix (FREIX Retrieves Electronic
Intelligence X), is a scheme to infiltrate the Western world with a 'free'
operating system with nasty backdoors hidden within its obfuscated source
code. IRC (Intelligence Relaying Code) is another Finnish innovation
designed for spying purposes."
Linus Torvalds plays a prominent role in the conspiracy. "That old story
about Linus developing a Unix clone in his spare time while at University
is a lark," the report states. "Indeed, the name Linux ("Line X") was
coined because the kernel can extract any arbitrary line of intelligence
from any document it has access to."
Funny! Does it go on?
SO what is CTP ?
I'm pretty excited about XGL. It is VERY cool. Thanks for the video.
live CD demonstrating the new Xgl technology for 3D window manipulation and other unusual effects:
See #16.
In this case, they're recent snapshot builds of Windows Vista that go to developers, MSDN subscribers, and at certain conferences and trade shows.
IIRC, the latest one was build 5308 (Feb. CTP), there's going to be an April CTP and then a more public trial before it ships around Christmas.
I wouldn't mind being a Windows beta tester--truth be told, I'm quite curious on how new versions interact with other OS's on the same computer (e.g. on a dual-boot system with Linux).
But I don't have a DVD-rom or the $100+ to subscribe to MSDN to get a legal copy. 8^/
I saw that on digg.com
I don't think I have the 3d graphics power to pull it off smoothly. But I am going to download it to try.
I didn't see all the effects that the Demo ( Shadow Ace pointed to ) showed but perhaps I didn't know how to activate them....may go back and take a look at it again.
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