What is a Team Project?#

I have now installed and used TFS at a number of clients.  On every installation the very first question asked has alway been, what is a project?  This question seems to provoke a solid hour of conversation about organization structure and development practices.  No doubt every shop will always be different, regardless you will still derive from some base.  Last night while browsing around on MSDN, I ran across the official "project" party line.  Below is just a snippet from Team Foundation Team Projects.

The Logical Definition of a Team Project

Logically (or conceptually), a team project is a single infrastructure that encompasses all of the separate tools and elements used in the life cycle of the development of a software application. Each software application, or "team project," in development is virtually grouped in its own namespace intended solely for the team project. Therefore, a team project is simply a container isolating all of the tools and artifacts associated with a particular software application in development, such that all other team projects will not have access to those tools or artifacts (for example, source code, work items, and documents).

The team project is the central concept that holds together the team endeavor of creating a specific software technology or product. The team project is the virtual collection of artifacts relevant to a software application on which a team is working. For the team members, the team project concept eliminates the problem of having access to multiple artifacts not relevant to the team project; such an excess of artifacts causes confusion and delays the software development process. At a minimum, the team project consists of a set of tools and artifacts. The team project may also include source control policies, a team project reporting site, and a team project portal. The Team Foundation team project allows the process template, during the creation of a team project, to select which tools are relevant and will be added in the team project container.

The team project concept enhances reporting across all the tools used by the team. In the past, cross-tool reporting was challenging because the data from different tools was not related. For example, if a software developer wanted to obtain a cross-tool report on defects, he or she would have to distinguish the defects from multiple projects, since the defects were all stored in a common location. A team project is created in a namespace containing only tools and artifacts relevant to the software project; therefore a common filter is created which can relate different artifacts from different tools.

A single Team Foundation Server server may contain multiple team projects, each of which are created in a separate namespace, such that a document named X in namespace A is not the same as a document named X in namespace B. Creating a team project in a separate namespace allow artifacts or tools to be unique to the team project for which they belong, such that a tool or artifact contained in team project A is not accessible to a software developer working on team project B.

MSDN | Team Foundation Team Projects, http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms181234(VS.80).aspx

Tuesday, May 23, 2006 9:05:46 AM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00) #    Comments [0]  | 

 

Teamprise 1.0 Released#

Let's face it if you are on a big enterprise development project you most likely will have both platforms, Java and .Net.  I am a big fan when it comes to using the right tool for the job.  I have been lucky enough to see Teamprise in action on some heterogeneous projects I have been on.  It's great to see a product like it harness the power and vision of the TFS platform.

Nice job goes out to the staff at Teamprise!

Tuesday, April 11, 2006 5:06:39 PM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00) #    Comments [0]  | 

 

Visual Studio Source Control Undelete Configuration Check-box#

It's been a while since my last post but I had an opportunity to take a month of vacation when my child was born.  Let me just say, it sure didn't feel like a month.

Yesterday I stumbled across some IDE source control configuration gem.  While poking around in I ran across "Show deleted items in the Source Control Explorer" in Tools -> Options -> Source Control -> Visual Studio Team Foundation Server.  I can't tell you how many times I have been through those options but apparently I just ignored that whole section since it has the proxy server inputs above it.  Once checked you will be able to use the undelete features from within the IDE rather than tf.exe.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006 1:22:24 PM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00) #    Comments [0]  | 

 

TFS RTM'd#

It's official, TFS has RTM'd.  Jeff gives more detail about it.

Congratulations to everyone on the TFS team for a job well done!  Many congratulations and thanks to all of our partners and customers who have helped make this a success.

Friday, March 17, 2006 5:04:38 PM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00) #    Comments [1]  | 

 

Announcing, Ethan Clark Sell#

Warning, Baby SPAM!

 

Last night we introduced a new potential Microsoft interview candidate :)

 

<ECS>

 

  <Name>Ethan Clark Sell</Name>

  <Date>March 9th 2006</Date>

  <TimeOfDelivery>9.35 PM</TimeOfDelivery>

  <Sex>Male</Sex>

  <Weight>6 LB 8 OZ</Weight>

  <Length>17.5"</Length>

  <DeliveryOffset>17 days early</DeliveryOffset>

  <APGAR Score="9.5" />

 

  <VisualStudioSettings Preference="Visual C# Development Settings" />

 

  <InputDevice>

    <Keyboard>Split</Keyboard>

    <Mouse>Notebook Laser</Mouse>

  </InputDevice>

 

</ECS>

 

Friday, March 10, 2006 9:16:14 AM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00) #    Comments [1]  | 

 

Codename Origami#

You may have heard some buzz around something called Origami which is a new PC form factor.  You can find out the official details here: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2006/mar06/03-09Mobile.mspx

Funny part, I have just enough room in my backpack for yet another device.

Thursday, March 09, 2006 10:45:46 AM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00) #    Comments [0]  | 

 

Web Service Security Book#

Yesterday I received my copy of: Web Service Security Scenarios, Patters, and implementation guidance for Web Service Enhancements (WSE) 3.0. 0-7356-2314-7

So far it looks like a great read.  It's one of the first I have seen that addresses patters and practices in the web service security space.

Tuesday, March 07, 2006 8:29:23 AM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00) #    Comments [0]  | 

 

Free Thumb Drive?#

Serious?  I can't joke at a time like this. Click here, then click on valuable information. I don't think it gets any easier than that.

Thanks to Blake Handler for the awesome find.

Monday, March 06, 2006 2:00:14 PM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00) #    Comments [0]  | 

 

Energy Blue Theme#

Want a better looking desktop theme?  Microsoft a while back released a theme called Energy Blue or Royal.  I was first introduced to it via the Experience Pack for Tablet PC.  Well it turns out that theme doesn't just work on a tablet pc but XP as well, here's how:

  1. Download : http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/2/9/5295FA0C-575A-4EE6-B186-0A8CF7DDFDE6/WindowsXP-TabletPC-EnergyBlueTheme-x86-ENU.exe
  2. Do not run the exe as it will fail but rather unzip it
  3. Copy the content to C:\WINDOWS\Resources\Themes
  4. Select the Energy Blue theme from the theme drop down @ "Right Click on Desktop / Select Properties / Themes Tab"

Enjoy!

Monday, March 06, 2006 12:39:42 PM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00) #    Comments [1]  | 

 

WIQL List Separator and the TFS Release Candidate#

This past release of TFS brought us the much needed friendly names in the Team Foundation Client user drop down lists.  Before that change, your WIQL query may have looked like this:

<Wiql>
    SELECT [System.Id], [System.Title]
    FROM WorkItems WHERE [System.TeamProject] = @project
    AND [System.AssignedTo] IN ('UserIdA', ''UserIdB')
    ORDER BY [System.Id]
</Wiql>

As you can see we are searching for any Work Item assigned to UserIdA and UserIdB.  The user list is delimited by a comma ( this will become important later ).  After the release canidate release that same query may now look like the following:

<Wiql>
    ...
    AND [System.AssignedTo] IN ('FirstNameUserA LastNameUserA', 'FirstNameUserB LastNameUserB') 
    ...
</Wiql>

The only change to this query was the replacement of the alias with the users First Name Last Name.  This query assumes your Active Directory is setup to display First Name Last Name rather than Last Name, First Name.  If your Active Directory is setup like the latter then your query will look like:

<Wiql>
    ...
    AND [System.AssignedTo] IN ('LastNameUserA, FirstNameUserA', 'LastNameUserB, FirstNameUserB') 
    ...
</Wiql>

With that setup the name actually introduces a comma which invalidates the list separator.  This query is now broken.  All is not lost. 

We can change the List Separator from a comma to a semi colon. Control Panel -> Regional and Language Options -> Customize, on the numbers tab and you will find the List Separator setting.  Do realize this change may adversely effect other applications which may use the List Separator.

 

 

Your query will now change as follows:

<Wiql>
    ... 
    AND [System.AssignedTo] IN ('LastNameUserA, FirstNameUserA'; 'LastNameUserB, FirstNameUserB') 
    ...
</Wiql>

Wednesday, February 15, 2006 7:44:17 PM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00) #    Comments [2]  | 

 

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