Over the past two months or so, I’ve had the privilege to participate in the PowerShell v2 CTP feedback program. Last week, was the final week for the program and based on my experiences I wanted to give the PSH team some love (details following).
While working at CCO, I’ve had the chance to participate in a number of different Microsoft product testing and feedback programs. That’s part of what we do at CCO. It seems like every couple of weeks or months we are downloading, installing, playing with or even deploying a next generation product from Microsoft. Needless to say, my experiences with the different product groups have varied from being hands-off to very hands-on or someplace in between.
With the PSH team, they are very hands-on. In doing so, they try to both provide their testers as much guidance as possible while also taking their feedback to heart. After all, their primary goal is the improvement of PowerShell. To achieve this goal, the team has figured out that “Users” are one of their greatest of resources. While I’m sure that other product teams have realize this aspect of the software development lifecycle. I’m giving the PSH team props because they are very actively working on figuring out the formula for drawing users in and using them to spur innovation.
Heck, just from CTP to CTP2 there were two major leaps forward based on user feedback:
- The documentation has continued to make massive improvements. We can all remember PowerShell v1’s documentation or lack thereof.
- The team introduced the Push-Runspace cmdlet which allows you to setup an interactive session with a remote computer.
Yeah, there is other stuff. But, those two were on my list. :>)
Anyhow, when combine the continued improvements with the product itself, and the efforts of their team make their testers feel included within the process. Ya, have to give them a big pat on the back!
