I just got this in an email:

Did you go to Microsoft Connect and supply feedback about the things you don't like about the product? That may be received better than a rant.

I feel like I should explain better what I think about this. Broadly, I see it as a dead end path, since there is no real way for me as the reporter, to do anything about it except to report it. The main issue here is that a lot of those bugs are being closed for what looks like ridiculous reasons. Eventually, it lead to the belief that there isn't much point in connect, since there isn't any feedback about it, nor any way to get the results back if it it fixed, at least not until the next release. And yes, I know about hotfixes, that doesn't help me when I want a bug fix that affects Rhino Mocks. But that is assuming that the bug was fixed.  I believe that I had one good experience with connect, here, where I reported a bug and it would be closed on Orcas.

A somewhat random selection of issues that I didn't like...

Bugs:

• TypeConverter for value types (such as int, bool, short, etc.) return true to IsValid, even if the value is not valid - STOP, I the name of backward comparability.
• Cannot create/shadow copy 'VariousFileName' when that file already exists. - I hit that one several times a day.

Suggestions:

• Allowing Expression<T> in attributes parameters. - Doesn't seem likely, but it is sitting there for over half a year now, with nary a comment.
• Renaming class diagrams to cs files cause the IDE to crash - A crashing bug that can happen very easily, postponed, apparently after Orcas, which puts it at around 2009 at least?
• Let IDisposable know if an exception occurred. - That one is a PITA from a syntax stand point. Closed, by design. I suggested improving the design, sigh. This is a sample of a few design suggestions that I had, all were closed with a By Design flag.

Basically, the problem is that the feedback loop is broken, it goes only one way. And I am sure that I am not the only one that remembers the flurry of bulk closing of bugs as "By Design" near VS 2005 Beta 2 & Launch. The problem is not that some of those things are by design, the problem is that the design is broken.

So, the best scenario for me is to report a bug to connect, hope that it wouldn't get ignored, and assuming it is fixed, wait for the next release cycle to get it. Oh, and often enough it get postponed, so I may have to wait two (or more) release cycles to get the fix.

Sorry, but that doesn't really encourage me to do anything with it.