Upcoming changes

It's time to describe what we're planning to change and deliver in September.

1. v4.0.6 and v4.1 will be released. Earlier I described what's planned there. But I didn't say all :)

We're going to deliver v4.1. It's obvious we're unable to finish with sync there (likely, sync will be moved to v4.2), but on the other hand, I think we've made more than enough changes to make such increase of version number fully justified. Moreover, with v4.1 release we will:

- Launch of new DO4 web site. Just few pages with major features described alnd links to Wiki & blogs, but it will represent DO4 much better.

- Complete manual & Wiki. Yes, as many of you wished, it will be easy to print it and read it on weekend. We're starting works on huge Wiki update next week. Manual will be built based on Wiki content - either autmoatically or manually.

- Improve installer. Mainly, new project templates will rely on integrated PostSharp .targets files, so it won't be necessary to install it.

2. I hope we will be able to return DO4 back to ORMBattle.NET. Now there is a very strong competitor in performance area - BLToolkit, so I hope it will be acceptable for the community.

Actually, one more reason for this is that I'd like to show it is possible to beat even such a killing simplicity on many of existing tests - even although BLToolkit fits almost ideally into my description of theoretical performance test winner there . And I really like such challenges.

3. This blog will die, but my own blog will replace it.

I clearly see impersonal blogging works must worse than personalized one. So I'll be the "blogging face" of DO4 and Xtensive. Actually this does not really change anything - I'm anyway the author of, likely, 98% of our blog posts. But by some reason I always tried to push forward my company's image and identity rather than my own. And I now feel it was wrong.

Many of our customers deal with us mainly because of people they deal with at Xtensive. Some of them know me, others will initially remember Alexey Belov, Alexander Ustinov or Dmitry Maximov. In fact, as everywhere, they like the people behind the company, but not the company itself. So making our products and blogs much more personalized must be a good idea.

I hope you won't think of this as of my own wish to advertise my personality further. I never did this during past 6 years. In fact, earlier many of persons standing behind our products were intentionally hidden. Now I'm going to bring some of them upfront. Products we develop must be associated with some persons standing behind - this will make our business more personalized, and, likely, more trustful for you.

P.S. Frankly speaking, the main reason of this is that I tired to write "we think" instead of "I think". But that's not for public ;)

P.P.S. Do not unsubscribe ;) I'll try to move the blog to new location keeping old RSS and Atom feeds working.