July 9, 2010 – Links and Quick Hits
Thank goodness it’s Friday. I hope everyone has a terrific weekend! On with today’s links…
Visualizing Team Foundation Server Work Items with Live Labs Pivot from Team Foundation Server Team Blog – I love mashups like this. This post talks about viewing TFS work using Live Labs Pivot. It’s really easy to do and the post gives you everything you need to give it a try. It’s a bit more whizz-bang than useful, but it does promote the discussion on how visualizing data with TFS can help you better manage your software teams and efforts.
What’s new in Visual Studio 2010 quick reference poster from Robert MacLean – Robert provides a terrific “What’s new in Visual Studio 2010” poster you should check out.
June ALM Documentation Update Available from Brian Harry – The ALM documentation for Visual Studio 2010 has been truly superb, and Brian provides a massive link dump to a number of pieces of new content in the June documentation update.
Debugging MSBuild script with Visual Studio (2) from The Visual Studio Blog – This post is the second part of a series on debugging MSBuild scripts. Here we dive into an example on how the MSBuild debugger works.
July 8, 2010 – TFS Links and Quick Hits
Lots of great stuff today.
TFS 2010 Support for Project Server from Brian Harry – Brian offers lots of details on the new Project Server and TFS integration that is available in CTP form. The point of the CTP is to get feedback and it should not be used for production anything. It appears the plan is to get this thing out ASAP, so any feedback you can provide will definitely be influential. Brian also details what scenarios the integration is meant to address and what the plans are for it internal to Microsoft.
Debugging MSBuild script with Visual Studio from The Visual Studio Blog – For those of us who have spent more than a few hours painfully writing and debugging MSBuild scripts, this one is long overdue even if it’s not perfect. Many teams have made significant investments in MSBuild but debugging issues with MSBuild scripts was always tedious and manual. Those days may be gone as we now have true MSBuild script debugging – with caveats. Check the link for details.
Use TFS 2010 build to execute arbitrary task from Alkampfer – This post provides a really great into into the build workflow capabilities in TFS 2010 build. Build is a topic I’m really hoping to explore in detail over the next few months.
IntelliTrace and unfamiliar code from Cameron Skinner – Cameron provides a great Intellitrace example with the idea of using Intellitrace to quickly get into a code base you are unfamiliar with. He even includes a sample app so you can get your hands dirty.
July 7, 2010 – Links and Quick Hits
Wednesday, and I’ve got big announcements afoot. Stay tuned. On with today’s links…
Work Item Query Administration tool from Codeplex – I’ve been working through a few Team Project upgrades from 2008 to 2010, and wanted to write a batch script to handle all of the work item imports and work item query deletions and additions. The witadmin tool has me covered when it comes to work item type definitions, but it’s of no help at all when it comes to messing with work item queries. A coworker informed me of this tool and it worked like a charm. I was using it within 5 minutes of downloading – no joke. The syntax is virtually identical to witadmin and it has a version that works for TFS 2010 and a version that works for TFS 2008.
WIQL syntax for Link Query from Team Foundation Server Team Blog – This post details the new Work Item Query Language syntax for the new Direct Links and Tree queries that are now part of the work item tracking arsenal. I find that I’ve become less and less likely to write WIQL directly than I used to be, and that’s partially because the graphical WIQL editor handles most of my needs. That said, I still like to get my hands dirty from time to time and if I’m querying things via the API, the information described in this post is a godsend.
Recursively Finding Files in TFS Build from Ed Blankenship – In this post, Ed talks about the FindMatchingFiles build activity which returns a list of files matching a particular string pattern. Good info, especially if you are trying to figure out your way around the out-of-the-box workflow activities provided in TFS Build.
TFS 2010 Videos from Notion Solutions – At Notion, we’ve been doing weekly webcasts on a host of TFS and Visual Studio related topics for some time now, and a few of those webcasts are available for download. If you want to get a quick lap around a certain set of features or see a great demonstration of how the ALM story comes together with TFS and Visual Studio, you should definitely check these out. Currently posted are webcasts on:
- Streamlining Testing with Visual Studio 2010 ALM Tools
- Managing Requirements with Team Foundation Server 2010
- Using Team Foundation Server for Non-Windows Development
These are great videos and more are on the way, so spread the word.
July 6, 2010 – Links and Quick Hits
The Project Server/TFS 2010 connector has emerged from the vapor! A big Tuesday Links and Quick Hits below…
TFS 2010 and Project Server 2010 Integration CTP VM Available from Steve St. Jean – I’m sure this was announced elsewhere, but I first heard about it from Steve so he gets the credit. Microsoft has provided a TFS 2010 and Project Server 2010 integration CTP virtual machine configured and ready for you to play with. The download involves 19 files weighing in at around 12 GB, so check out Steve’s post for details on how to make the download as painless as possible. I’ve got it downloaded and intend to dive into it immediately. For some background, check out this screencast from almost 2 years ago that took a look at some of the scenarios the team was trying to solve.
Testing support for Silverlight apps in Visual Studio 2010 from Anu Bharadwaj – The new testing tools have a mixed compatibility story with a few Microsoft technology stacks, and Silverlight is one of them. This post details what works, what doesn’t, and when we’ll get an update to fix of a few of the things that don’t work. If you need automation tools for Silverlight today, you might check out the Telerik WebUI Test Studio. By crazy chance I ran into Chris Eyhorn of Telerik (formerly of Art of Test) and he encouraged me to check out WebUI Test Studio. I’ll let you know once I get a chance to take it through it’s paces.
Deploy a solution and a database in a Lab Management Virtual Environment from alkampfer – If you want to understand what the big deal with Lab Management is, take a look at this post that talks about deploying your application to a virtual environment. We’ve been doing this at the Notion office for some time and, if you’ve got everything configured correctly and have adequate hardware, this is a real game changer. Great post.
Team Foundation Server Build Extensions Power Tool April 2010 from the Visual Studio Gallery – More than a few clients build Java applications and use TeamPrise/Team Explorer Everywhere for version control and work tracking. The Team Foundation Server Build Extensions Power Tools provide a set of extensions that allow Ant and Maven 2 builds to be executed from TFS and allow those builds to publish their results (including JUnit test results) back into TFS. If you are a Java team in a TFS world, you’ll definitely want to check this out.
July 5, 2010 – Links and Quick Hits
I told you I wasn’t taking the day off. Lots of version control today, and a look at Telerik’s new TeamPulse product.
How “Get Latest Version” Really Works? TFS Source Control from Eran Ruso – Great post that explains how “Get Latest Version” really works. I see confusion around “Get Latest” at clients all the time and even see a few clients who, by default, do a “Get Specific Version” and force-get everything from Version Control. If you’re doing that, it’s totally unnecessary and hopefully reading Eran’s post will help restore your confidence in “Get Latest Version”.
Comparing with the Latest Version in the Pending Changes Window from Ed Blankenship – Ed brings us a nice tip on how to view file differences in the pending changes window via a couple of shortcuts.
How do I find the history for a renamed folder in TFS 2010? from Matt Mitrik – Matt covers a feature not yet available via the UI and that’s the ability to view the recursive history of a folder in version control. This issue creates confusion with a number of my clients and should definitely be a feature available in the UI.
What’s new with TeamPulse? from the TeamPulse Blog – Looks like a July release from the upcoming TeamPulse requirements management and agile planning tool. I haven’t seen the tool first hand yet and am really eager to get a hands-on. This post provides an overview and details some of the features of TeamPulse. Also check out the TeamPulse videos for more info.
July 2, 2010 – Links and Quick Hits
Friday! And for those of us in the States it’s a long weekend as we celebrate our independence. This blog won’t be taking the day off, though. To go along with a client upgrade I just completed (that kept me up all night), today’s theme is reporting in TFS 2010 and reporting problems in an upgrade. Reports are just one of the many moving parts that may need attention after a 2010 upgrade. Unfortunately, for most teams the upgrade is just barely getting started when TFS 2010 is configured.
Team Foundation Server 2010 – Where Are My Reports? from Aaron Bjork – Upgrading to TFS 2010 from a previous version means an introduction of a number of breaking changes to your existing reports that require your attention. This post talks about those breaking changes and how your existing reporting service warehouse is left intact so your existing reports still show data. On one hand I applaud the team for the courage of introducing changes that would break the existing reports but on the other hand, it’s a really sorry way to treat your customers that had invested heavily in their existing reports to find out that an upgrade has left them in a hardly useful state. You take the good with the bad I guess. The basic gist is that new projects work great while existing projects require some work to get your reports to behave like they should.
Team Foundation Server 2010 – Relational Warehouse and Cube Schema Changes from Sunder Raman – This post details some of the changes in the relational store and cube for 2010. If you have extensively customized reports this will be invaluable, and if you just want to get a better understanding of what data is in the warehouse, this is your ticket as well. This is an older post but an update was posted that includes a few additional changes that were shipped with Beta 2.
Upgrading Team Foundation Server 2008 Reports to 2010 (part 1 and part 2) from John Socha-Leialoha – These posts detail the work I was talking about earlier if you have reports in 2008 that need to be upgraded to 2010. There’s some tedium here and if you have a large number of projects, you’ll need to fix more than a few reports.
July 1, 2010 – Links and Quick Hits
Thursday! Why don’t system administrators give system drives enough space to get things done? The world may never know. On to today’s Links and Quick Hits.
Team Foundation SDK for VS 2010 from Allen Clark – The first increment of the Team Foundation SDK for VS 2010 has been published and it looks terrific. If you are looking into extending TFS, this should be your first stop. You can expect to find lots of info, sample code, and API documentation to get you rolling.
Test Scribe Power Tool Update from Visual Studio Team Test – The great Test Scribe tool has an update to address a problem where Visual Studio Team Suite 2008 and Visual Studio Ultimate 2010 are installed on the same machine. Here’s your download.
Sean McBreen: Proactive Project Management with Visual Studio 2010 from Channel 9 – There’s lots of good view content, including this overview of the project management and reporting capabilities by Sean McBreen. On my to-do list is to put together an index of all the video resources out there.
Restoring TFS 2010 – My Personal Impression from Eran Ruso – Need to do a TFS 2010 restore and wondering how the experience is going to be? Check out this post from Eran Ruso that describes his first restore with the new and improved 2010 restore process. He gives the process the thumbs-up and followed the process documented here.
June 30, 2010 – Links and Quick Hits
The TFS train never stops…
Scrum for Team System Version 3 – How to model BUGS from Crispin Parker – This post talks about how to process and track bugs using Scrum for Team System, but really it’s a great read for anyone trying to get a better handle on bug tracking, even if Scrum and Agile aren’t in your vocabulary.
Effectively Tracking Cost in Scrum from Urban Turtle – This is more Scrum-related than TFS-related and talks about tracking cost in Scrum. There’s good info here, although I tend to take a different approach. I’m a big, big fan of tracking cost, but I believe most teams make tracking cost entirely too hard. The author does provide an approach that will work, although it’s not detailed enough for my tastes. That said, adopting Scrum can still be a huge step forward for many teams even if they can’t track cost quantifiers in detail, and the whole point is to get better at making software. Tracking cost is definitely going to be the subject of a future article and a hot opinion on Story Points, as I’m a big believer in metrics, metrics, metrics (and Story Points aren’t really a metric).
TFS 2010 Coded UI Test Basic User Guide Is Published from Eran Ruso – Eran has finished another of his great guides and how-to documents with an installment on the basics of Coded UI testing. If you are taking a first look at Coded UI testing and have some questions on how your manual testing effort can be utilized to promote your automated UI testing effort with Visual Studio, download the PDF and take a look. If you are a power user, this guide probably won’t show you anything you haven’t seen already, but it’s a great resource if you are just getting your feet wet.
Application Lifecycle Management landing page at the Visual Studio Developer Center on MSDN – Just in case you haven’t seen it, there’s a great MSDN landing page with links to articles, blogs, videos, documents, and books that cover lots of ground on Team Foundation Server and Visual Studio 2010. It’s a definite bookmark for TFS users and gurus alike.
June 29, 2010 – Links and Quick Hits
Today’s a big one. Important stuff below.
Now Available: Visual Studio 2010 RTM Virtual Machine with Sample Data and Hands-on-Labs from Brian Keller – Thanks to Brian, Microsoft has now provided a virtual image of a configured TFS 2010 + Visual Studio 2010 machine complete with several labs to show off all the latest ALM-related features you’ve heard so much about. You can download a couple of different options including a Hyper-V image, a Windows 7 Virtual PC image, or a Virtual PC 2007 SP1 image. Everything blows up on December 15, 2010 so get it while the getting is good. A lot of hard work went into this and if you want to test drive 2010 without the pain of installation and setup, this is your ticket.
Last Call: TFS 2010 Beta 2 and RC Expiring June 30th from Brian Harry – If you’re still using TFS 2010 Beta 2 for any reason (production or otherwise), you’ve got a day to get upgraded or extend the trial. Brian has details on how to get 90 more days out of your setup in case everything’s not quite in order to go to the RTM.
Extending Work Item Tracking Context Menus from Team Foundation Server Team Blog – For those of your extending Visual Studio and TFS, this post is a must-read. Basically, the work item tracking context menus are extensible, and that means there’s nothing stopping you from seamlessly integrating your extensions and the work item tracking capabilities in TFS. The post contains plenty of details and code that should do more than just get you going.
C++ killed my grandpappy – Is C++ hard and where are the C++ coders hiding? from Scott Hanselman – Okay this isn’t necessarily TFS or ALM-related, but the C++ hacker in me couldn’t help myself in sharing. I’ve spent the majority of my professional career writing C++, and even though I’ve written mostly C# in the last few years, I still consider myself a C++ programmer. In this post the always interesting Scott Hanselman muses on C++ and talks about C++ development with Visual Studio.
June 28, 2010 – Links and Quick Hits
It’s Monday, and that means it’s time for a lap around the web to find the latest in TFS and Application Lifecycle Management links.
Scrum for Team System v3.0, MSF Agile v5.0 and Team Foundation Server Scrum v1.0 (beta) from Crispin Parker – This post does a comparison between the EMC Scrum template, The Microsoft Scrum template, and the MSF for Agile Scrum template. The conclusion you can expect to get is that the Scrum for Team System template is the most accurate template when it comes to doing Scrum “by the book”. That said, it’s been my experience that Bigfoot sightings are more common than teams following Scrum precisely as is prescribed.
TFS 2010 Upgrade Issue from Brian Harry – Remember that hotfix I posed last week regarding a version control bug that affects teams when they upgrade from 2008 to 2010? Brian Harry offers a much more detailed explanation of the issue and what you need to do to fix it. Kudos to the team for jumping on this issue quickly.
Patch Available for Cut or Copy displaying “insufficient memory” error in VS 2010 from The Visual Studio Blog – I haven’t seen this issue, but apparently many users are running into a problem where Visual Studio 2010 reports “insufficient memory” even when copying and pasting relatively small amounts of text. A description of the bug is included in the post. You can download the patch here.
Visual Studio ALM Rangers – Architecture Guidance gets “thumbs up” from Willy-Peter Schaub – The TFS Rangers team has released new Architecture Tooling Guidance on CodePlex. I’ll be diving into it this week so I can’t comment much on what’s there, but if any of the other Rangers’ guidance is any indication this will be an indispensible resource for anyone trying to become acquainted with the Architect Tools.
