MSBee CTP 1 Survey Results

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Monday I collected the current survey results from the people that have been using the MSBee CTP. I wanted to share what we heard with all of you. 

We received a total of 21 responses for 75 survey requests that were sent out. It feels like we mostly hit C# component vendors that were building class libraries that reference other .NET 1.1 DLLs. The MSBuild team blog was the best marketing we had for the first CTP and ¾ of the people who wanted Asp.Net project support would be willing to use the Asp.NET project template that was released as an aftermarket solution. 

This survey mostly validates the direction we are taking, but the biggest pain point for customers seems to be that lack of easy IDE integration and having to manually edit the project files.  

Actions from This Data

  • (1st Sprint) Test: Some of this data will be interesting for the testing team while building their test plans.
  • (1st Sprint) PM: Try and specifically target VB.Net developers with some information about the tool in the next release.
  • (1st Sprint) PM: Find community members to volunteer try our solution with the Asp.Net project template. A few people mentioned this as working for them in our first CTP. 
  • (2nd Sprint) PM: Documentation around the “Partial Class Issue”
  • (2nd Sprint) PM: Figure out story for easier IDE integration.

How did you hear about the MSBEE CTP?

The MSBuild specific audience blog was our most effective communication tool about the first CTP. We posted in the forums as well. It will be interesting to see if this changes after we post to its own download site for the public release.

  • 12 – MSBuild Team blog
  • 3 – Craigs Blog
  • 1 – Friend
  • 1 – Other blog (Robert McClaws)
  • 1 – Google
  • 1 - VS.NET 2005 Search for “1.1 Build”
  • 1 – Msbuild web forum

What languages have you used the MSBEE tool with?

C# developers formed the majority of our early adopters. We should specifically make sure we are hitting the right ration here in the second CTP to have more confidence in VB projects. Perhaps a specific mail to the VB MVPs in the second release.

  • 15 – C#
  • 3 – VB/C#
  • 2 – VB

Tools/Tasks Used Frequently During Build

The AL and Strongname tool were most commonly used.

  • 8 Strong Name Tool
  • 6 – AL
  • 4 Regasm
  • 3 – Sign Tool
  • 2 Resolve Native Reference
  • 2 Generate BootStrapper
  • 1 – NGEN

Project Size

  • 1,600,000 - Largest LOC
  • 106,000 – Average LOC

Important Feature Ranking

Ranked low to high by adding 1 point for 1st, 2 points for second, etc. Less points = ranked higher.

  • 49 More IDE Support (Toggle between 1.1 and 2.0 Builds)
  • 52 More IDE Support (Not having to update the project file by hand)
  • 62 Asp.Net
  • 67 Com References
  • 85 C++ Project Support

Yes/No – Willing to use the Asp.NET Web Project Template Solution?

16 of 21 people said they would be willing to use the Asp.Net project file model. 

Project Types Used

Most people were building class libraries and there was a high degree of overlap between the class libraries and windows forms projects.

  • 17 Class Library
  • 12 Using Windows Forms
  • 6 Console Apps
  • 5 Windows Control Libraries
  • 3 Windows Service
  • 3 Web Control Libraries
  • 2 DataBase Projects
  • 1 Web App
  • 1 Sharepoint Project
  • 1 Outlook Add-In

Project Properties

  • 18 1.1 .NET DLL Reference
  • 11 VS 2005 Project Reference
  • 10 Using RESX Files
  • 10 COM Reference
  • 9 Web Reference
  • 9 .NET 2.0 DLL Reference
  • 5 Mixed .NET 1.1 and .NET 2.0 Solutions
  • 5 Mixed Languages

Verbatims – Other Comments/Suggestions

There are a couple of more feature suggestions and bugs that I left off of this blog posting because the give away some information about the solution the user was developing.

  • Thanks for taking the time to do this.
  • great work!
  • IDE integration is our biggest issue at this point.
  • Thanks so much for MSBEE - it is really filling a gap for us!