Visual Studio for Data
I know I’m way late on this one, but it’s a great one, and that’s the announcement of Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals. One of the coolest things about Microsoft is seeing all the interesting projects that are coming and actually being able to both beta test and provide input to them at a really early stage. Back in February of 2005, I made a post about “My Dream SQL Tool Features” with a wish list of features that I wish our tools had including:
- DTS support for Importing XML
- Data Validation Rules
- Unit Test Support
- Refactoring
- FxCop
- Source Control for Stored Procs, Views, Triggers, Functions
I of course passed this onto the Data Dude team (internal name for the SKU and the persona behind VS for DBs) as they were just starting to staff the team. The good news is that Unit tests, rename refactoring, and Source control are all in the TechEd CTP (XML import in DTS is in SQL 2005). Another great feature that I didn’t have on my list (but really should have) is dummy data generation. This is especially true when data is flowing to/from multiple systems. The other one, which wasn’t an issue in the app I was creating, is the deployment change management nightmare. How do I easily script changes between Dev>>Test>>Staging>>Production? The answer is now that it’s all automagically done for you!
You may already own this product: Do you own Visual Studio Team Suite? If so, this upgrade is **free**
For more info, check out blogs from the team: