TFS Express Beta
As I mentioned previously, I finally got my storage spaces setup on one of my extra laptops. And that one of the reasons I wanted that setup was so that I could put a TFS Express database on there. So the other day I simply did the basics and added the project to TFS.
Today I started messing with some of the portal features. We don't really use these at work so a lot of it is new to me. We've setup iterations and areas in the past but never made use of them. I'm also seeing some things that are either new in the upcoming version or were a separate component before. All related to Agile practices.
And my initial thoughts are that this is all pretty cool. One of these days I'll need to go check out some open source alternatives. I don't remember there being anything as powerful and simple as TFS 5 years ago when I was heads down in Java and the non-MS world. And to be honest, MS wasn't this far along back then as far as I know.
That is the only problem living in the 'Microsoft world'. You can say what you want about how original or unoriginal they are, but their execution is almost always spot on. And no where is that more true than from a developer perspective. Whether they offer the best tools or not... isn't really the point. In my experience there is more stuff provided and automagically configured, the implementations are intuitive and perform well, and typically the Express versions of their software contain all of the functionality an individual or small team could ask for. And all of this means, I haven't really gone looking outside of MS solutions for the past 3 years at least. So, yes I'm biased. And worse, my opinion of competing solutions is probably old enough now to be vastly inaccurate.
Anyway, I'm off topic now and not feeling like getting back on it. I'll be playing around with my code on the side and will eventually come back with more TFS related posts.
Today I started messing with some of the portal features. We don't really use these at work so a lot of it is new to me. We've setup iterations and areas in the past but never made use of them. I'm also seeing some things that are either new in the upcoming version or were a separate component before. All related to Agile practices.
And my initial thoughts are that this is all pretty cool. One of these days I'll need to go check out some open source alternatives. I don't remember there being anything as powerful and simple as TFS 5 years ago when I was heads down in Java and the non-MS world. And to be honest, MS wasn't this far along back then as far as I know.
That is the only problem living in the 'Microsoft world'. You can say what you want about how original or unoriginal they are, but their execution is almost always spot on. And no where is that more true than from a developer perspective. Whether they offer the best tools or not... isn't really the point. In my experience there is more stuff provided and automagically configured, the implementations are intuitive and perform well, and typically the Express versions of their software contain all of the functionality an individual or small team could ask for. And all of this means, I haven't really gone looking outside of MS solutions for the past 3 years at least. So, yes I'm biased. And worse, my opinion of competing solutions is probably old enough now to be vastly inaccurate.
Anyway, I'm off topic now and not feeling like getting back on it. I'll be playing around with my code on the side and will eventually come back with more TFS related posts.
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