PDC05: Day Three (Behind the Scenes of Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server)

Doug Neumann (channel 9) gave a good presentation on "Behind the Scenes of Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server" which discussed how Team Foundation Server can be customized to add features particular to your organization. The number of events which you can hook are quite substantial, one of the better examples was having the checkin process run smoke tests prior to acceptance. If the smoke test fail, the checkin is blocked. The relationship between work items (defects, bugs, whatever you call them) and checkins is very flexible. The relationship is many-to-many: one checking fixes many work items, many checkins fix one work item, etc. Among the coolest features here is the connection between work items being resolved and tasks in MS Project being marked as completed, WOW! The workspace concept is fundamentally the same as AccuRev, which preceeded VSTS. The checkin reporting feature uses stylesheets to customize

MSBuild looks really interesting, though not well polished. We are presently using Visual Build Pro from Kinook Software, and we are very fond of it. MSBuild's real power comes from its integration with VSTS, rather than its natural capabilities.

The new SCM of VSTS and the work item integration makes it worthwhile for us to investigate using it at DeLorme.