waffle

I need to take a break for a while. The short kind, surely, but a break nonetheless.

(See: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Roadmap Clarification.)

The past few months have been an amazing time for the SQL Server team as we gear up for the start of the global launch wave on February 27.

Put your boots on.

We see it as a critical step forward for our data platform and the foundation of our broader vision for business intelligence. Based on what we are hearing from customers, as well as the results of the latest benchmarks, it seems the industry agrees.

I am high as a kite.

Not surprisingly, one of the top areas of focus for us is always to deliver a high quality product, and in a very predictable manner. This is vital for our customers and partners – which is why we’ve frequently discussed our goal of releasing SQL Server 2008 within 24-36 months after SQL Server 2005.

Not surprisingly, releasing SQL Server 2008 within weeks after its launch event is vital for our customers and partners. We are on track to cash in on our investment of carefully planned use of ridiculously formulated statements to seemingly communicate actual facts openly while promising nothing.

We are on track to reach this goal.

Where by “goal”, we mean the new goal, not the old goal. Not that the new goal wasn’t the old goal all along.

Microsoft is excited to deliver a feature complete CTP during the Heroes Happen Here launch wave and a release candidate (RC) in Q2 calendar year 2008, with final Release to manufacturing (RTM) of SQL Server 2008 expected in Q3.

Microsoft is excited to finally rename its “Release to manufacturing” releases to “feature complete CTP” releases, and to actually work a few months beyond that towards stability for a change. We’ll let you know how it goes. But don’t let that dissuade you from using the CTP – after all, Heroes Happen Here, not in Q3 calendar year 2008.

Our goal is to deliver the highest quality product possible and we simply want to use the time to meet the high bar that you, our customers, expect.

Our goal is to ensure that the successful high quality Vista marketing and planning genius is still with the company and we simply want to take this opportunity to remind you, our customers, that we’re staying the course.

This does not in any way change our plans for the February 27 launch

Up is down. Black is white.

and we look forward to seeing many of you in Los Angeles and other events around the world.

Please do not bring rocks.

Apple (delaying Apple TV firmware “one to two weeks”). Microsoft (delaying SQL Server 2008 roughly five months).

Don’t be sneaky; be up-front. Respect your customers. Microsoft especially; with Vista tanking and bad PR abound from trying to buy out the OOXML format votes earlier, can you really afford to shit in your smartest customers’ hands and call it a sundae?

“This is going to take a bit longer, because we want to make really sure we’ll get this stable and working.” See how easy that was?

I’ve made some observations in the past month or so.

In Mac OS X, I drag text selections around to the Dictionary (dropping it on the Dock tile to look it up) and elsewhere like no one’s business. I frequently use proxy icons to drag a file or its represented contents elsewhere (like – due to poor roundtrip alpha channel fidelity on some part – saving images as PNGs in Preview and dragging the proxy icon onto Photoshop to open it there, rather than copying and pasting). I even more frequently command-click the proxy icons to go to the containing folders. And, of course, for some reason, I seem to use services a lot.

None of these are possible — or to the extent that they are possible, are frequently uncommon — on Windows. In fact, many of them are broken. I tried dragging a link from Firefox to the Start menu, which spring-loaded, and onto the IE7 icon. The drag finished, but the link didn’t open. (This was on an XP computer, I haven’t had time to check on Vista yet.) What’s more, for the past year or so, I’ve sometimes been unwittingly trying to use iPhone gestures — like “pinching” — on my trackpad. I’ve also tried to use the fabulous two-finger scrolling on other trackpads. Each time, I’ve complained about it not working.

I’m going somewhere with this, I swear.

When I was younger, I was on a school trip. We stayed in a few houses in a long valley, about 200 meters away from a particularly high and steep hill (it was probably too short to be a proper mountain, but I was small). One day, I decided to climb the hill to see how far I could go. About every tenth minute or so, I’d think I was at the top, until I climbed just a bit more, and I could see even more of the mountainous hill unfold. After about two hours of this, I gave up and returned to the base.

Later that day, we rode in a cable car to the top of the hill. It was high above the hill, and the view was beautiful. About 20 meters to the side, I saw the path I had climbed, and despite my sense of effort and accomplishment, I had only gotten about a third of the way.

Like climbing a mountain, and like the linguistic Sapir-Whorf hypothesis — which stipulates that the vocabulary of a language can shape which thoughts are formed by those using it — I posit that user interfaces and usability and, in the end, software development is all about this. At any time you have a limited horizon, and you have to venture out (or up) into unexplored territory to really see the big picture.

Why don’t Windows users miss proxy icons? Why aren’t people drowning Dell’s support hotline with requests for two-finger scrolling? Why does everyone — everyone! — suddenly articulate the need for a tablet Mac, or a Newton make 2? Because by getting to higher ground in interfaces, we grow attached to new useful concepts. Like a way to easily fling around a relevant file as though you’re in the file manager. Like not having to stay in a particular corner or edge to scroll. Like being able to chord finger movements together to completely one-up precise but nervous, mouse-emulating and tensional stylus control.

If this comes off as some sort of platform support piece, please know that it’s not intended to. But know that I’m staying away from Windows as much as possible on many accords but where interface and the allowed vocabulary of such interactions are a big part, that it pleases me to hear that they will move towards supporting multi-touch, and that I’m not in the least surprised that Dell and their ilk aren’t much interested in improving their hardware in order to make this tenable.