This post describes How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Beta. The .NET Beta 2.0 now resides happily on two of my four home office computers and it is time to move forward and embrace the bomb, um, I mean, beta.
I wrote before how I was going to go with .NET 1.1 for a new Windows Forms project because "apps built for the real world have to be built IN the real world." After doing a lot of deliberation I've concluded that the Beta 2.0 IS ready to be introduced to the real world, albeit cautiously and in stages as necessary, between now and the end of the year. I won't be installing the .NET Beta framework willy-nilly on company machines (there will be two separate keys required for missile launch), but for the few who will need the framework to support the .NET 2.0 Forms project, we'll handle Beta 2.0 installations (and removal) as required.
The benefits of going with the new .NET 2.0 enhancements and releasing a 2.0 product out of the gate are too great to do otherwise. It's really a no brainer. Only my [sometime excessive] caution prevented me from seeing that earlier. I've always said (and quoted in ComputerWorld by everybody's pal, Joris Evers) that our company begins investing in a Microsoft product with a Beta 2.0 release. So its done.
Navigator:
Target distance, three miles.
Copilot:
Roger. Three miles.
Navigator:
Target in sight. Where in hell is Major Kong?
Kong busily works to splice two wires together. He finishes and then attaches an alligator clip to a patch panel above his head. The bomb doors open. He grabs his stetson to keep it from blowing away in the sudden slipstream.
Kong:
Aaaaaa hooooo! Aaaaaaaa hooooo! the bomb is dropped, and Kong along with it
Bombardier:
Hey, what about Major Kong?
Kong:
Aaaaaa hoooo! Waaaaa hooooo! Kong rides the bomb in its falling arc waving his hat over his head, celebrating his success in ecstatic rodeo style. On reaching the ground, the bomb detonates.
Cut to: int. War Room
Strangelove script: http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0055.html