Cool news
Well it appears as though Microsoft is going to start offering an express version of TFS starting when they release the beta of Visual Studio 11.
The geek in me is psyched about this. I love version control systems. Especially good ones. I had stopped using them in my personal development entirely though because after using TFS on my work development I simply couldn't find a free tool that came close to its equal. I used to think Tortoise was the be all and end all of free versioning tools. Until that fateful when I reformatted my hard drive I was using. All of my files and folders I had been tracking in Tortoise had all of these decorations marking their status despite it being a load of bull, and the 3rd party integrations with Visual Studio were not nearly as polished as what TFS offers (though that is sort of to be expected given the TFS plugin for Visual Studio is a 1st party plug-in).
For me, this is another one of those things MS has done over the years that is now starting to pay off, for me at least. To be honest, I don't think this will make the waves in the development community that it should. But if you are a developer, especially a .Net developer or work in Visual Studio and you aren't using TFS now... you would be a fool to not use it when they start offering the express version provided your use case doesn't exceed the user limit on the express version or you need one of the few features that are restricted to the paid versions.
I'm feel more every day like I will never go back to the world of Java where my foray into development began. I find Visual Studio better than Eclipse, and the express versions of VS offer enough now that I haven't looked back.
Sql Server Express would in my opinion beat other free DB solutions if it was friendlier for beginners. I know that sounds like an insane comment, but seriously, the first time I installed MySQL I was creating tables, querying an manipulating data within 10 minutes of completing the install. I must have installed SQL Express 5 times over the span of months before discovering you needed to install management studio as well to interact directly with DB. Before you laugh, keep in mind that in neither case did I NEED the software, had never used either before and so I only browsed through what little documentation came with the products or I happened to pass by while trying to download them. But again, if the limitations in the free versions aren't a burden for you and you know what you're doing then I think SQL Server wins again.
And now they have an express version of their version control system. And while Eclipse only loses to Visual Studio by virtue of VS crashing less and generally running more smoothly, and SQL Server wins as many battles as it loses, TFS with the integration into Visual Studio is simply cannot even be touched by other systems I've used. Will need to wait to see how I feel about it once it is finally out there in the wild. But definitely excited.
I think the only gripe I have with Microsoft in their future software versions is the Windows Marketplace. I love it general. And I get why they want all of the control. But as a person who likes to write software for others in his spare time... I'd like to be able to write a Metro style app for a particular person or business and be able to provide it to them to install on a cheap power efficient ARM tablet without needing to distribute it through the Marketplace. In Windows 8 however, looks like if I want that sort of experience I'm designing a traditional .Net app which will only run on x86/x64 machines. At least that is what I'm understanding from Building Windows 8 blog... and I may be reading it wrong or missing something. Again, only time will tell.
The geek in me is psyched about this. I love version control systems. Especially good ones. I had stopped using them in my personal development entirely though because after using TFS on my work development I simply couldn't find a free tool that came close to its equal. I used to think Tortoise was the be all and end all of free versioning tools. Until that fateful when I reformatted my hard drive I was using. All of my files and folders I had been tracking in Tortoise had all of these decorations marking their status despite it being a load of bull, and the 3rd party integrations with Visual Studio were not nearly as polished as what TFS offers (though that is sort of to be expected given the TFS plugin for Visual Studio is a 1st party plug-in).
For me, this is another one of those things MS has done over the years that is now starting to pay off, for me at least. To be honest, I don't think this will make the waves in the development community that it should. But if you are a developer, especially a .Net developer or work in Visual Studio and you aren't using TFS now... you would be a fool to not use it when they start offering the express version provided your use case doesn't exceed the user limit on the express version or you need one of the few features that are restricted to the paid versions.
I'm feel more every day like I will never go back to the world of Java where my foray into development began. I find Visual Studio better than Eclipse, and the express versions of VS offer enough now that I haven't looked back.
Sql Server Express would in my opinion beat other free DB solutions if it was friendlier for beginners. I know that sounds like an insane comment, but seriously, the first time I installed MySQL I was creating tables, querying an manipulating data within 10 minutes of completing the install. I must have installed SQL Express 5 times over the span of months before discovering you needed to install management studio as well to interact directly with DB. Before you laugh, keep in mind that in neither case did I NEED the software, had never used either before and so I only browsed through what little documentation came with the products or I happened to pass by while trying to download them. But again, if the limitations in the free versions aren't a burden for you and you know what you're doing then I think SQL Server wins again.
And now they have an express version of their version control system. And while Eclipse only loses to Visual Studio by virtue of VS crashing less and generally running more smoothly, and SQL Server wins as many battles as it loses, TFS with the integration into Visual Studio is simply cannot even be touched by other systems I've used. Will need to wait to see how I feel about it once it is finally out there in the wild. But definitely excited.
I think the only gripe I have with Microsoft in their future software versions is the Windows Marketplace. I love it general. And I get why they want all of the control. But as a person who likes to write software for others in his spare time... I'd like to be able to write a Metro style app for a particular person or business and be able to provide it to them to install on a cheap power efficient ARM tablet without needing to distribute it through the Marketplace. In Windows 8 however, looks like if I want that sort of experience I'm designing a traditional .Net app which will only run on x86/x64 machines. At least that is what I'm understanding from Building Windows 8 blog... and I may be reading it wrong or missing something. Again, only time will tell.
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