Our Community Plan

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With the release of VS SDK 3.0 a couple of weeks ago, we are starting to look seriously into the enthusiast space for VS Extensibility. We have posted the SDK on a publicly downloadable site so developers don't need to join the VSIP program before downloading it. We have put the VS SDK Help online to make the documentation more accessible. We have loosened up the platform targeting restriction to enable more scenarios. But this is only the beginning...

Over the next several months, we will continue to focus on our community efforts. In my mind, there are 3 primary goals:

  1. Awareness - to promote Visual Studio as an extensible platform. If you are reading my blog, chances are that you already know that you can extend VS. But a lot of developers out there still think of VS as just a development tool. We need to change that thinking.
  2. Innovation - we want to jumpstart the community to spur innovation. What we do is to provide a platform to develop on, but there are a lot of creative ideas from the community that has yet to be unleashed. Look at some of the stuff mz-tools has done for some samples. This is the kind of innovation we want to promote.
  3. Sustainability - overtime, we want to build a community that can support itself. Today, our team is spending a lot of time to provide developer support. This is taking away time that we can use to build better samples, provide better documentation and show you what new scenarios are possible.

So what are we going to do? Here is the preliminary thinking:

Pillar 1: Great Products & Experiences

Up till now, a lot of the SDK content is targeted at ISVs who build commercial products on Visual Studio. We need to make the SDK product and the entire learning experience better to lower the bar for VS Extensibility. Examples of efforts that support this pillar are:

  • Improving the out-of-box experience - where do you start once you have installed the SDK? How do you find out what pieces can be extended in VS?
  • Revamp Getting Started Help Topics - I wouldn't say today's the VS SDK Getting Started Topic is all that great. It doesn't really walk you through at a high-level what VS extensibility entails and point you to the right places. I think this is an area that we can definitely improve on.
  • Beginner's experience - have you picked up a book to learn about how to write a package for VS? I guess not. The reason is that there really aren't any books on this subject out there. This is something that we will be working on.

Pillar 2: Regular Communication

Our team is going to have a regular cadence of frequent communication withthe community to ensure that we are providing up-to-date and useful content, as well as to ensure that the community is active. Some things we are thinking of doing are:

  • Monthly release of technical blogs via Dr. Ex - these will almost be like whitepapers. Each month, we will blog about a particulare extensibility area of interest. We already have the schedule for the next 6 months prepared.
  • Monthly hosting of web chats - we are working with DevX to host a web chat each month with a member of the VS SDK team. This will be a great opportunity for the community to interact directly with the team to ask questions and give feedback.
  • Monthly release of screencast/webcast - this is a great way for us to provide some of the same content that we deliver in our VSIP Developer Labs to the world. We host the VSIP Developer Labs quarterly here in Redmond, and it's a benefit for VSIP Alliance and Premier members.

Admittedly, more frequent communication than monthly would be good. But given all the other things that our team has to do, this is the right balance at this point.

Pillar 3: Strong Engagement

How about actively growing the community? To support this pillar, we will actively run special initiatives to grow the community. For example:

  • Expert recruitment - recruit VS Extensibility experts who deserve recognition in this area. Not only do we want these influencers' feeedback, we also want them to share their expertise with others in this area.
  • Extensibility Contests - run both internal as well as external contests that will encourage more developers to try developing add-ins and packages. We will give away great prizes :)
  • Academic initiatives - work with colleges to expose students to VS extensibility.
  • Conference appearances - we are going to crank up our conference appearances.

Pillar 4: Solid Infrastructure

Finally, we need to provide a virtual space fo developers in the community to "hang out". Examples are:

  • Shared source projects - use CodePlex as the designated venues for shared source projects related to VS Extensibility
  • Online catalog - provide an online catalog to connect consumers of VS extensions with the developers. Where is that one place where I can find all the VS extensions?
  • VS extensions pervasiveness - we are starting off by pulling out the Power Toys that we used to ship with the VS SDK and making them into a separate download. These Power Toys will be easily downloadable and installable. The goal here is to get them more widely distributed to raise awareness that these extensions are indeed possible and drive VS extensibility awareness. Over time, we want to also share the sources of these Power Toys to seed community activities.

So that's the concise version of our community plan in the near term. What are the things that you would like to see in a great VS Extensibility Community? If you have any ideas or feedback for us, we would love to hear it!

- James