ALT.NET: How can Microsoft Patterns and Practices Help?

That question was raised by a member of Microsoft’s P&P Team earlier.  I wanted to reproduce the correspondence here:

This is a hot topic, but I am here to have an open discussion with a group of peers so I am taking a leap of faith. It’s no secret that I work in patterns & practices on the client team that built CAB (Yes you can blame me). Anyway, since joining the team I’ve seen a rash of criticism come our way particularly around the way we built CAB, Enterprise Library, etc. Much of that criticism has come from a lot of the folks on this list.  In my opinion some of the criticism was fair and warranted, some if was not. Regardless, I have listened to a lot of the concerns and we are actually working to do what we can to address them.

As a team patterns & practices mission is to help developers be successful with the platform. We are **not** a Microsoft compete with Open Source. Our goal is not to be the next Log4Net, Nhibernate, Castle etc. We may provide some functionality within our guidance that mimics some of those efforts but that’s based on the fact that we are addressing the same concerns those products address, not competing with the product itself. Many of us do have Open Source / Agile backgrounds which is probably why it’s not accidental that we landed in p&p. Lastly, we’re not perfect far from it. We have a lot to learn, and I am sure we can benefit greatly from the shared knowledge of folks like yourselves. </Shameless plug>  Anyway, so forgetting about any pre-conceived notions that you about p&p  and our deliverables today. What would p&p 2.0 that you can be proud of look like to you?  I am open to your constructive criticism. Regards Glenn