Working with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System (Pro-Developer) Review

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Working with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System (Pro-Developer) ReviewIf you are looking for a book that gives you the ins and outs of Team System, this is not the book. If, on the other hand, you would like to know what Team System is, then this book is fine.
I did not get a chance to get a PDC version of the book, so I am not sure exactly what was in that "beta" edition. I will take the other reviewers word that this book is very much the same edition. It is quite common for authors to simply fix chapters from beta to final release, so this is both a common and accepted practice. Given the advice, however, I would probably not own both.
I have been using VSTS since the first beta that had its bits. I am, overall, impressed with the tool, as well as the MSDN online articles on the product. I was looking for a book with a bit more depth on the subject and there are some notable portions in this book, although most of the book is far too simple for my tastes.
What do you get?
The first three chapters are an extremely high level overview of Team System, including the Team Foundation Server. They are useful for a foundation on the product, but anyone with any type of exposure will likely skim through these chapters.
The next four chapters deal with the four roles (Project Manager, Architect, Developer and Tester) across the products (Team Foundation Server and its hooks, Team System Architect, Team System Developer and Team System Tester). These chapters have a bit more meat than the first three chapters, but are stil fairly high level.
The next two chapters are a bit deeper. Chapter 8 deals with MSF (Microsoft Solutions Framework) and is a decent overview of how MSF works, for those with little or no exposure; It is not, by any means, a full featured tome on the subject. Chapter 9 focuses on extending Team System and has a few nice code samples; most of the work is far too simple to make up for the shortcomings of Team System (for example, the build engine has to be customized for Continuous Integration (like using Cruise Control with nAnt for a truly automated build on check in)).
The final chapter of section 3 deals with deployment and closing out a build cycle. There is not a great deal of detail here and it primarily focuses on the reports available in TFS.
Of the two appendices, the first is probably the most useful as it provides context for how Team System is used from end to end. It is fairly basic information, but does deal with how to recognize Release Candidate time. The second is not much more than a text only listing of some of the visual elements you can use in the designer.
Don't get me wrong, I am glad I have this book, as I have learned a bit more Team System through the book. I wish it was a bit deeper, but there is certainly a market for intro level material in this product.
My recommendation: If you are a beginner with Team System and want an overview with a bit of meat, this book will fill the need. If you are already familiar with the product and looking for a full meal, it would be best to wait for other books on the product.Working with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System (Pro-Developer) OverviewA pragmatic, hands-on overview of the new Microsoft Visual Studio team development environment, which features new tools and end-to-end integration for the roles of architect, developer, tester, and project manager.

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Professional Visual Studio 2005 Team System (Programmer to Programmer) Review

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Professional Visual Studio 2005 Team System (Programmer to Programmer) ReviewThis is the book for leverage the power of VSTS. It covers setup and install of VSTS, specific Visual Studio tool enhancements, implementing methodology, extensibility, and overall team integration.
Each of the authors are experts in specific technologies/methodologies that VSTS addresses and they take you through the insides of all the major components of VSTS.
- Sam Guckenheimer's book "Software Engineering with Microsoft Visual Studio Team System" is focused on software engineering and project management using VSTS.
- Richard Hundhausen's "Working with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System" is an introduction to "What is Team System?"
This book is the technical ins and outs of Team System.Professional Visual Studio 2005 Team System (Programmer to Programmer) Overview
A team of Microsoft insiders shows programmers how to use Visual Studio 2005 Team System, the new suite of products from Microsoft that can be used for software modeling, design, testing, and deployment
Focuses on practical application of the tools on code samples, development scenarios, and automation scripting
This timely book serves as both as a step-by-step guide and as a reference for modeling, designing, and coordinating enterprise solutions at every level using Team System
The book begins with an overview of Team System and then offers nuts-and-bolts guidance on practical implementation
Code examples are provided in both VB.NET and C#


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Professional Team Foundation Server Review

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Professional Team Foundation Server ReviewTeam Foundation Server (TFS) is a new Microsoft product designed to help development teams better manage the software development cycle. It is a huge product, just installing and configuring it is a big task because you need to deal with Windows SharePoint Services, SQL Server 2005, SQL Server Reporting Services, a data warehouse, a build server, a proxy server and of course, TFS itself. Where do you start? How do you plan such a large deployment inside your company? How the decisions that you take right now will affect you in the future?
Professional Team Foundation Server is a book that will help smooth out the installation process and help you better understand the beast that is TFS. The target audience is not the average developer; in fact, the book targets a few roles: the lead developer, the IT administrator or the person responsible to install and maintain TFS, the project manager.
Part one covers the TFS installation, how to plan for it and the maintenance so it's IT focused. Part two covers how to create projects and what process template to select so it's project management focused. Part three covers how to extend and customize TFS so it's more developer focused and lastly, part four covers management.
I was very impressed by the quality of the information presented in this book. Two of the authors are Team System MVPs so they know their stuff. You'll find lots of hard to find tips; the kind of tips you would have liked to know before doing the install. It is an invaluable book and it should be mandatory reading for anyone wanting to install, configure, support, extend and manage TFS. It is a great reference book that will help smooth out any TFS installation. High praises of Professional Team Foundation Server.Professional Team Foundation Server OverviewAs the most important component of Microsoft's Visual Studio(r) 2005 Team System, Team Foundation Server is the central integration point that provides a collaborative environment for every member of a team, regardless of role. Since Team Foundation Server is so tightly interwoven with the rest of Team System, the authors have decided to present you with an invaluable resource that covers both, so that you may learn to set up and administer Team Foundation Server in order to effectively use the whole Team System toolset effectively.
Three Microsoft Team System MVPs cover how to plan a Team System deployment, complete a software project, and everything in between. They show you how to handle real-world challenges and tackle the tasks and scenarios that encompass the entire software development lifecycle.
What you will learn from this book
How to implement IT governance such as Sarbanes-Oxley
How to work with mixed environments (including Java and .NET)
How to set up the product for large distributed environments
How and why to take multiple lifecycles into consideration when deploying and using Team System
How to create custom development tools and administer and customize work items
How to monitor your team project metrics using SQL Server Reporting Services

Who this book is for
This book is for project managers, IT administrators, and anyone whose role consists of administering Team Foundation Server on a daily basis, running a software project, setting up users, or handling security.
Wrox Professional guides are planned and written by working programmers to meet the real-world needs of programmers, developers, and IT professionals. Focused and relevant, they address the issues technology professionals face every day. They provide examples, practical solutions, and expert education in new technologies, all designed to help programmers do a better job.

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Professional Application Lifecycle Management with Visual Studio 2010 (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) Review

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Professional Application Lifecycle Management with Visual Studio 2010 (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) ReviewI got my copy of Pro ALM with VS2010 last week and really liked the book. Nice job.
VS2010/TFS2010 is a huge new release and it was nice to have a comprehensive overview of the product in one place rather than scattered across 20 different blogs. Even though I've been working with the betas of Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server 2010 for months, there were still things that I'd missed. Plus, for the pieces/features that I already knew about, it was nice to read someone else's take.
It reads easy and it will give you a fast, efficient brain-dump for getting going with 2010.
Professional Application Lifecycle Management with Visual Studio 2010 (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) OverviewGet up to speed on Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) with Visual Studio 2010 through a combination of hands-on instruction and deep-dives.
Microsoft has packed a lot of brand new testing and modeling tools into Visual Studio 2010, tools that previously were available only to Microsoft internal development teams. Developers will appreciate the focus on practical implementation techniques and best practices.
A team of Microsoft insiders provides a nuts-and-bolts approach. This Wrox guide is designed as both a step-by-step guide and a reference for modeling, designing, and coordinating software development solutions at every level using Visual Studio 2010 and Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010.
Visual Studio 2010 offers a complete lifecycle management system that covers modeling, testing, code analysis, collaboration, build and deployment tools.
Coverage includes:
An Introduction to Software Architecture

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Professional Team Foundation Server 2010 (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) Review

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Professional Team Foundation Server 2010 (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) ReviewWith TFS 2010 (and VS 2010), Microsoft have gotten much closer to providing the ultimate package that contains all the tools that an enterprise needs in order to work effectively, efficiently, and productively. But it is certainly the best package currently out there. It is amazing to see the level of integration that is present between the different components constituting TFS 2010 to make it a real ALM toolset when combined with VS 2010. This is something that IBM Rational has tried before and, in my opinion, failed to deliver (the tools did not play well together, and required a significant amount of effort to make them integrate well) leaving a major gap in that field which prior to TFS 2010 has been filled only by specialized integrators who had to deal with all sorts of difficulties in order to make disparate systems work together. And the good news is that this will only get way better in the next version of TFS and VS.
This book can be considered both an introductory book to TFS 2010 as well as an intermediate level coverage of TFS 2010. In fact, some chapters present an advanced coverage of some topics (the administration chapters are an example). It is an excellent guide for anyone new to TFS. It presents a clear way of getting started with TFS as well as how to move to TFS if you've already been using some other source control repository. For folks already familiar with TFS 2008 or TFS 2005 and upgrading to TFS 2010, the book does a great job of presenting all the options you have and what to do to get there. Even if you are a TFS veteran and think you are experienced and well versed in TFS, I am sure you will still find something to learn.
One of the greatest sections in the book and one that I was pleasantly surprised to see was the section on Administration (Part V of the book). This is an important topic that has not been given enough attention so far in books covering TFS, and having one book provide such detail on this topic is refreshing. And what is more cool about it is that much of the information presented in the Administration chapters is based on the internal usage of TFS within DevDiv and other teams within Microsoft. In particular, Grant has been working with the DevDiv dogfood server for as far as I can remember. And I remember during the early stages of Dev10 when I wanted to perform activity logging queries and TFS data warehouse-based analysis on the DevDiv dogfood TFS instance, Grant was gracious enough to provide me with access as well as with the necessary queries to get me started. Grant's expertise in such highly scalable installations both in terms of management and troubleshooting is very evident is those chapters, and I am positive that it will be extremely valuable for anyone managing a large TFS installation. The discussion of how to utilize TFS with geographically distributed teams is a useful one indeed and works well towards the ultimate goal of presenting TFS 2010 as an enterprise-level source control system. To me, this section alone makes it worth buying the book.
I also found it strange that the Test and Lab Management chapter was in the Administration section. This is also another section that I thought would need more love from the authors (unless they were counting on Jeff Levinson's Software Testing with VS 2010 book to provide the more complete coverage of the topic). Nevertheless, the chapter makes up for that by providing very good guidance as well as pointers to external links that provide more information. I also liked the mention of the Test Attachments Cleanup tool as this tool will come in very handy when you start utilizing test plans heavily and collecting a ton of test results data.
I have to admit though that I was a bit worried about the TF Build chapters as they can overlap with the already encyclopedic coverage of the topic in Inside the Microsoft Build Engine: Using MSBuild and Team Foundation Build, Second Edition. However, it was evident that the presentation focused on how to get started with it if you were someone new to the product or someone that has used Team Build 2008, and then how to get really productive and customize your implementation. Another thing that was very cool in the Build chapters that I find rare in Microsoft books is that discussion and fair comparison to competing products. I thought the mention of other tools and systems like Maven, CC.NET, and Hudson was a good addition to the book (perhaps the advantage of having someone like Martin being part of this book?). Overall, I thought that the TF Build chapters only slightly overlapped with the content from Inside the Microsoft Build Engine book, but they also presented content that is unique to this book (for example, the discussion of building Ant and Maven projects with TFS). I found the coverage very informative and useful.
I also found the Reporting and Sharepoint chapter quite informative. However, I was hoping to see more in the Project Management section. In particular, I though the discussion of Project Server integration was very brief (about half a page). I think this is an important topic that deserves probably a whole chapter dedicated to it.
Overall, the book delivers great value and does very well in terms of presenting concise and useful information without rehashing any MSDN documentation but instead including tinyurl pointers to more detailed content. This is definitely one of those books that you will be keeping constantly on your desk and will probably have a bunch of bookmarks or post-its sticking out of it.Professional Team Foundation Server 2010 (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) OverviewAuthoritative guide to TFS 2010 from a dream team of Microsoft insiders and MVPs!
Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server (TFS) has evolved until it is now an essential tool for Microsoft?s Application Lifestyle Management suite of productivity tools, enabling collaboration within and among software development teams. By 2011, TFS will replace Microsoft?s leading source control system, VisualSourceSafe, resulting in an even greater demand for information about it. Professional Team Foundation Server 2010, written by an accomplished team of Microsoft insiders and Microsoft MVPs, provides the thorough, step-by-step instruction you need to use TFS 2010 efficiently?so you can more effectively manage and deliver software products in an enterprise.
Provides a broad overview of Team Foundation Server for developers, software project managers, testers, business analysts, and others wanting to?learn how to use TFS
Gives TFS administrators the tools they need to efficiently monitor and manage the TFS environment
Covers core TFS functions including project management, work item tracking, version control, test case management, build automation, reporting, and more??
Explains extensibility options and how to write extensions for TFS 2010
Helps certification candidates prepare for the Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2010 certification exam (Exam 70-512)

The clear, programmer-to-programmer Wrox style of Professional Team Foundation Server 2010 will soon have you thoroughly up to speed.

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