SQL Server 2008 is out, and I'm sure you are either learning about or already enjoying some of the new features. And while the dev team probably doesn't wholeheartedly agree with me at this very moment, I think that it can never be too early to start thinking about the next version.
As you surely know, not all of the features we have requested over time, and certainly not all of the bugs we have reported, have been delivered or fixed to date. This is certainly no discredit to the SQL Server team… they have added many exciting new features, and fixed a lot of bugs, over the past three years. But they could only do so much. Part of the problem is sheer volume… even a company the size of Microsoft has limits on how much they can allocate to a three year product cycle. Never mind that three years is not as long as it sounds, and there is a threshold of the number of talented minds you can throw at a project before you start experiencing diminishing returns. Another part of the problem is that it is very tough for them to get decent direction, when a surge in feedback comes too late into the process (or after an irreversible decision has been made). Take #341872 for example… while they said that they would gauge customer feedback, one of the most popular Connect items ever was not vocal enough to make Management Studio 2008's IntelliSense feature support downlevel servers. This probably makes Red-Gate very happy, but not the rest of us.
So like I said, it is never too early to start thinking about version 11. And with that in mind, fellow MVP Erland Sommarskog compiled a wish list of his "greatest hits"… the Connect items for which he would like to strum up support. I urge you to take a look through them, as he has made a significant effort to justify the items beyond the descriptions and comments in the items themselves. But the point of the exercise is deeper than that. Hopefully it will make you think of the things about SQL Server that you think are missing or flawed, and use Connect the way it was designed… to provide meaningful feedback and to give customer direction to the SQL Server team. You can see Erland's list here:
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I'd like to see Database Mirroring with more than one mirror.
Please do something about the cascading multi-path and cyclic references… Just like Oracle and DB2…
Steve, none of us can access the attached files, unless you were the submitter, or you are on the other side of the fence. The reason is a security / privacy issue, where one might unwittingly divulge company secrets in a .SQL script, or a database backup, or setup logs, or even items included on a screen shot etc. What I have tried to do (with little success) has been to ask the original submitter to post the attachments online and then add a URL to the item. Except in a few rare cases (e.g. 10+MB log files) I post an attachment to the item *and* I post a public URL to the image online. I think most people don't realize that their attachments are essentially marked as private, and I have tried to influence the connect people into giving us a flag (don't let Celko know I called it that) for each attachment, private by default, but which we could make public. That hasn't made it too far either.
My wishlist would include:
Moving TEXT/IMAGE data to a different filegroup – http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://web.archive.org/web/*/https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=299546
Multi-column subqueries – http://web.archive.org/web/*/https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=288772
Query Results cache!
http://web.archive.org/web/*/https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=320190
Interesting stuff. I think your hearts are in the right place, but it's your heads that may need some work:) I think you know where to find the answers to most of these wishes:) Be that as it may, for the item:
'Module-level table expressions'
http://web.archive.org/web/*/https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=343067
I cannot access/download the attached files. I would like to look at the examples. Perhaps you can pass this on. Thanks.