..that microsoft still hasn't grasped the concept of ease of use.

visual web developer is supposed to target the hobbiest and small web developer not experts. So when they claim it's easy to connect to a database by simply dragging objects (gridview) onto an aspx page, I don't really expect the wizard to crap out after I browse to an .mdb with the error "object reference not set to an instance of an object".

Come on microsoft it's just lazyness on your part not to provide helpful error messages.

As to crapping out when configuring a datasource.. this is something even Dreamweaver can cope with so why not VWD?

I could understand a problem if I had some obscure database but as I am using Access 2003 surely one microsoft product can deal with another?

I am not a programmer but I am a very competent web developer who has used mysql and PHP. I can follow instructions and was looking for ease of use and was seduced by Microsoft's blurb re VWD express. I am not a visual studio user who want a low cost alternative for use at home. In other words I am the target customer for this product - so why is it so hard?

I have found it very disappointing for reasons of:

? sluggish performance

? .vb files not given code collapse support or any other advanced intellisense support etc. Basically these are treated as text files.

? difficult/impossible to learn because, even though many automated features exist, you always have to add part of the code through intellisense or drag-n-drop, but then you somehow have to "know" to manually add some additional line of code in a special location to make it all work.

So in effect, you must learn how to develop through both the automated tools plus doing it manually. This type of "hybrid" approach is horribly frustrating simply because people will never remember all the auto/manual code combinations.

? Most advanced training tools/videos are in C# instead of VB