Looks like some people aren’t too convinced that VS2005 was really ready to be shipped
yet. An interesting
post on Mini Microsoft gathers together some initial feedback from early users
of the RTM version. The comment thread is pretty interesting, with comments from a
number of people in the industry.
The reality is that, regardless of how much testing/QA you put into a product the
size of Visual Studio, a brand spanking new release is always going to contain some
sort of problems which make it into the official release. The question of whether
to adopt it boils down to your attitude to risk and how hungry you are for the new
features. It you’re sensitive to risk, you’ll play the waiting game, and let other
people sort out the teething issues in the product. The reality is, that if you’re
working to a fixed cost of deadline the last thing you can afford is your compiler
refusing to work correctly; however trivial the problem may be. If, on the other hand,
you have the bandwidth to cope with trying different workarounds, trying out sexy
new technology is the best way to go; there’s definitely more excitement/reward in
doing that. Where you really don’t want to be is dependant on some new feature of
the product which doesn’t work as well as you expected; and stuck in the middle of
a project with a looming deadline and no alternatives!