I'm going reflect updates from TFS in MS CRM. In what way I could connect them?
I've found this tool: http://www.quantumwhisper.com/dynamics-crm-microsoft-tfs-integration/.
Are there any other tools like this one or possibly other ways?
Shan over at ADX is pretty much paving the way on this. Really great stuff, but I'm unsure what ADX keeps internal versus releasing to the community.
http://community.adxstudio.com/products/adxstudio-alm-toolkit/
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Sounds like a very simple question. But What is the difference between TFS and Visual Studio Team System ?
I know TFS is version control and VSTS is collection of tools for developers, architects, testers.
But is TFS a part of VSTS ??
Also what is Visual Studio Team Services ? How are these products different from one another.
Please explain as these things can be sometimes very confusing.
Very short: VSTS is online version of TFS, main purpose: service control: TFVC and Git, but also includes Agile tools, continuous integration and so on.
See more detaled information in documentation.
Basically its local Server vs. Cloud. There are a lot of articles which can be found on the internet. eg. this one.
One major drawback is the reduced possibilities of customizing your development process, WITs and so on. Here is a list of things you can't in VSTS: Click
But is TFS a part of VSTS ??
No - its an online version of TFS.
If you have more questions, feel free to ask - but try to be more specific.
I'd like to provide a sort of UI on a commit operation in Visual Studio for my team. How would I go about that, would I create a Studio add-in or is there a TFS event that would help in this case?
Great question! Unfortunately there isn't an extensibility point on the client side (Visual Studio) to be able to intercept a check-in. However, there is a server-side extensiblity point (called an ISubscriber Decision Point) that you can intercept and allow/reject the check-in. Do you think that would be helpful for you?
That extensibility point is not really documented very well but we have some information in Chapter 25 of our new TFS 2010 book (Wrox Professional Team Foundation Server 2010) about how to create one of these.
Another option would be to create a custom check-in policy... That doesn't seem like the best way to solve the problem though and is riddled with its own issues.
For those with experience of VS2008 and VS2010. Are there any areas in which you prefered 2008? Any annoyances with the upgrade?
Any reasons not to upgrade?
I'm coming at this from a Web Dev point of view.
Thanks
I think it depend principally of how you use VS.
If your goal is to continue to use Windows Form without Linq (some people stay with VB6...), VS 2010 don't seems to be a good investment...
But if you use, or plan to use WPF and co., VS 2010 seems to be a good investment for me !
So, i think it's interesting to ask yourself : "Any reason NOT to upgrade to WPF and Linq ?"
About your the fear of change like Office 2003 -> Office 2007
Yes, me too, i feel "dropped to my grandma's level"...
But i feel like that too with the change Windows Form -> WPF.
It's good for me : it's not with the improvement of the candle the the bulb was invented !
Office 2007 is for me a great improvement for the user interface...
But it's just my point of vue.
The main reason to upgrade to Visual Studio 2010 is the .NET Framework's new version 4.0, and all the accompanying tools you can use.
If you don't need this new version now, you can delay the upgrade: that's a reason.
But sooner or later, because we all know that we can't stay behind, we'll have to step forward... This is why all of us are using Visual Studio 2008 instead of Visual Studio 6.0 and build software for Windows 7 instead of Windows 98...
If you're in a team, one person upgrading forces all of your developers to have to upgrade as the Solution files and Project files will be marked as being 2010 format and VS2008 won't read them. One of our developers checked in a project using a 2010 beta and now we can't work on it as we didn't buy 2010 yet :(
I suggest you get VS2010 Express (when it's around) and experiment with it as far as performance goes. It's not quite the same as the full version, but close enough to spot big problems I should think.
Ok, I know this isnt a programming question, but I think its really important to understand the differences to be a more productive developer...so please don't close this question!! And yes, I do feel stupid for asking this question! Have only ever worked with the Prof edition of VS 2005/2008.
Now that we have a team of 6 people, I would like to what benefits Team System would offer us over 6 licenses of VS Professional? Also, what advantages does Team Foundation Server offer?
TFS can be good if you use work items and are interested in associating source changes with these work items. Otherwise, using it for a couple of weeks at a customer (that was not using work items) just made me want to run back to subversion.
Merging UI is not very good (to be polite), the VS plug-in always wants to contact the TFS server to check for any changes of the files you're using, there are false warnings of conflicts...
Note that I am the guy that usually defends Microsoft against the Java/PHP guys, so it is very strange for me to write this...
TFS is a great source control tool for every organization. And is much advance than Visual Source Safe. It also has work item management (for tasks) simmilar to Rational software. We are using it for years and not just for .Net languages.
With the Team System version you already have a Team Explorer wherein your users can access the source control. Also Team System consists of different sub products that targets specific job functions such as Team System for Development Edition (For developers), Team System Database Edition (For database architect), Team System Architect Edition (For System Architect), and Team System Test Edition (For testers). All those subversions are included on the Team Suite edition.
For the Professional version it could also benefit to the TFS source control system if the machine is installed with Team Explorer.
The major difference between Professional & Team System is Team Foundation Server. Team Foundation Server is the massive overhaul/replacement of Visual SourceSafe. But TFS also gives you other functionality such as work item tracking and other features to manage the complete development life cycle.
Hey, thanks to all for the answers so far! I have never worked in a team/collaborative environment before, so this is a tad bit new to me. We are in the midst of acquiring a "Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition with MSDN Premium subscription". I know that this package gets updated to "Visual Studio 2010 Premium with MSDN" on March 22 2010.
Will I still be able to leverage collaborative efforts using this package? Is it worth the $2970 additional cost?
EDIT: We are applying for the Empower for ISVs subscription. We work mainly on SaaS/RIA solutions. Am I understanding the term "Work Item" correctly - that is if I wish to task Developer 1 with say XHTML/CSS, Developer 2 with a certain functional module, and Developer 3 with another functional module - each of these is considered a work item that can be easily tracked with VSTS?
Team system, even without team foundation server has code analysis capabilities and metrics for your code that actually quantifies how maintainable it is. For a project manager this is nirvana when trying to find out who does a great job on their code and for a developer it gives him hard facts about where to improve his code.
That being said I think Team Foundation Server might be overkill for a team of 6 people except if you are building an extremely large system.
If you are comfortable with Subversion or a different version control manager,
you are dont mind using Nunit (or alternative unit test tool) and you are
familiar with or can find the open source (or fee based) code metric tools,
and you have bug tracker in place you can save quite a bit of money on the licensing.
I have worked a lot with Team System, and at some clients, just the Pro Version.
While some of the integration TS offers is slick, I am so used to nUnit and
Subversion that I actually miss them at times when working in TS.
Now in 2010, the Ultimate edition does offer some great UML diagramming and code analysis
tools that I will miss in lower versions.
Why isn't there a Team Foundation Server Express Edition?
Almost 3 years and 16 answers later,TFS Express is now a fact.
The Express Editions are specifically designed for individuals who do not have access or, more bluntly, cannot afford the full versions of Visual Studio but who would like to develop in the .NET Framework.
Team Foundation Server on the other hand, is specifically designed for corporations which has software development teams with a number of members. Corporations (nor startups) have never been the target of the Express product.
You can still take advantage of Express editions and collaborative tools by using open source products in conjunction with them, e.g., use Subversion for source control, Cruise Control for continuous integration, etc. They will give you most of what you need and still allow you to use the Express editions in a team environment.
I am not sure, however, if specifically using Express editions in a team environment is a violation of its EULA. Hope not :P
There is an Express version of TFS coming out with Visual Studio 2012:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/bharry/archive/2012/02/23/coming-soon-tfs-express.aspx
Because Microsoft is positioning TFS to compete with software like ClearCase, releasing a free edition would undermine that positioning.
If you're looking for the source-control a bug-tracking functionality that TFS provides, there are a number of free products out there that can do it for you like CVS or Subversion if you want something open source. TFS is meant to be used by very large teams, addressing the kinds of problems you have with very large teams - using it for just source control is total overkill.
I prefer Sourcegear's products (they're free for single developers) - Vault if you're just looking for source control, and Vault Professional (previously called "Fortress") if you want source control along with bug and work item tracking, which covers most of TFS's functionality.
Well, it's an interesting question, but the real question is what the usage scenario for such a thing would be?
In particular, I see TFS as focusing heavily on supporting dev teams. (Whether it does a good job of that or not, it's a different matter). Certainly individual developers could benefit from things like the source control facilities in TFS, but it's not clear how a single individual would take advantage of a lot of the functionality in TFS.
And, for pure source control, there are already good alternatives for that already on the market (the way I see it)
Also, it's interesting to note that TFS has some substantial hardware, software and environment requirements that I'm not sure would make it easy for a single individual to host; unless he can spare one machine just to run it (some people do it; I find it a waste of a good machine, myself :)).
And for small teams, there's already TFS WorkGroup Edition, which I guess is as close as MS is going to get to TFS express.
And individuals shouldn't be using TFS?? That's like saying source control is only for groups and not individuals.
If they had an express edition of TFS, then they'd probably get more people using it and paying for their company to use it.
I guess you could say that there is an Express version! Codeplex! Just like the express editions of Visual Studio have certain limitations, you can use Codeplex for free, but you must develop open source.
Doesn't the TFS workgroup edition somewhat fill this 'express' role? 5 users or less and the price is very 'express' when compared to the full 800 pound gorilla.
IBM have a similar product to TFS, Rational Team Concert, and its available for free for a small number of users.
At last Express edition of Team Foundation Server is also available. Check it out here.
No, from memory anything Team Foundation based costs a few times more than the professional versions. That's where Microsoft really makes its money.
The most straightforward answer is that TFS doesn't scale DOWN well enough for it to be worthwhile. TFS is very much aimed at development teams of medium, large, and huge sizes, it's not designed well for very small teams.
Also, on the small scale there are already pretty high quality free, or inexpensive, source control systems available, so it doesn't make much sense for MS to put effort into competing in that area.
I would suggest using SVN with the VisualSVN plug-in if you require source control, which everyone does, on the cheap.
Look at it this way, Visual Studio 2008 Standard is a $250 product. How much of that functionality exists in, say, Visual C# 2008 Express? At least the equivalent of $25 worth? Most likely. At least $10 easily. VSTS 2008 Team Foundation Server is a $2500 product. If they did the same amount of feature reduction to make a TFS Express edition it would be worth $250, which is a bit much to give away for free. More so, a lot of the value of TFS is in its scalability and core feature-set, which is almost impossible to strip away to create a simplified, cheaper product.
I think the reason that Microsoft doesn't have a SQL Server Express version of TFS is because TFS includes SSAS under the covers. I doubt there will ever be an "express" version of SSAS.
Here is the link to download the TFS Express Edition Beta: http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/11/en-us/downloads#tfs-express