Bug bashing

Wow, I don't seem to have blogged for a long time. We're pretty busy right now baking our next DSL Tools Community Tech Preview (you know, the one that's gonna run on top of Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2).

Today we had a bug bash. Essentially this is where the whole team stops their normal work and just pounds on a build of the software to try and shake loose as many issues with it as possible. Its actually really nice to spend a bit of quality time in "be a real user" mode as opposed to just exercising the tiny bit you happen to be working on at any one time.

I spent my time on two areas

• the beta1->beta2 updater setup experience (so blame me when it all goes horribly wrong ;-) )
• the model explorer in target designers and a bunch of new functionality we're adding in that area.

As our team has grown a little bit lately and, for the first time, there are some areas of the product that I simply haven't ever used, so its great to get back into the swing of finding all the great new stuff that people have added.

P.S. On a totally unrelated subject and in the spirit of foolish anticipation of May 19th, (I must be a sucker for punishment), I can heartily recommend the following blog:
The Darth Side