SQL Server 2008 - Intelli-lack-of-sense
I've been to a few Microsoft events over the past six months, and definitely have more than a passing interest in the development of SQL Server 2008. As a developer, one of the things that had really got me excited was the demonstrations of Intellisense against live databases. This is something that that up until recently was only available using the very excellent tool Red Gate SQL Prompt.

At most of the talks I've been to, it's been made perfectly clear that the Intellisense support was going to be available when connecting to all versions of SQL Server. This sounded fantastic, since I work with lots of different databases on a day to day basis as a contractor, and often have to "feel" my way around. Having to refer to the Object Explorer every five seconds is definitely something of a hindrance.

So, knowing that SQL Server 2008 RC0 had been made available I grabbed it this lunchtime and installed the client tools in the early afternoon. Apart from the fact that it took nearly an hour to complete (just for the client tools), everything went pretty swimmingly. I managed to lose my lovely visual theme again, but never-mind I could always re-apply that later. I fired up SMS, connected to my local SQL2005 Express instance and ... nothing. Didn't work. Zip, nada, no Intellisense anywhere.

Since I was working for a client, I didn't stop to contemplate this too much, I had to simply get on with it. But when I got home I did some digging and found this blog article:

http://blog.magenic.com/blogs/whitneyw/archive/2008/05/04/Backward-compatibility-for-Intellisense-please.aspx

It turns out that the CTP's backwards compatibility for Intellisense was actually a bug, and should never have seen the light of day. SMS wasn't checking the server version before enabling or disabling the Intellisense, and since MS are so worried about us poor little programmers possibly using the wrong syntax, they've pulled the plug on it completely. Having read the blog post and the accompanying details on MS Connect (feedback centre), I am pretty damn sure that no amount of petitioning is going to help.

So, if you're looking for a SQL Intellisense tool, don't bother grabbing the latest SQL Server unless you're wanting to work with only SQL 2008 instances. Keep your SQL 2005 tools and make an investment in Red Gate SQL Prompt. I'll write about how effective a tool it is in another post.

And why if a small company like Red Gate can do it, Redmond can't is beyond me.