Did the title catch your attention? Well it did mine.

It is the title of a post that I've just read. Although the title seems a little bit trolish it's because it probably is, if you read the subtitle you will see the main title is not only trollish but very misleading. The post subtitle is The Social Dynamics of Code Reviews.

It mainly talks about code reviews in open source projects but most of the knowledge sprung in this post is applicable to close source projects.

Code reviews is something that is hard to do effectively. Even you get past the sociological issues mentioned on the post, without a decent tool it is very hard to keep track what has been reviewed and it's not.

Code review is one of the area I wish there were some kind of offering for TFS. Granted you can do code reviews with shelve sets and some sort of informal communication via email (assigning code review tasks or even a work item type) but that would give us no metrics or a simple way to keep track which parts of the code have been reviewed.

The more complete solution for TFS seems to be TeamReview (freely available on codeplex) which combines specific work item types and a Visual Studio add-in to help you manage the process. While I never tested the tool, I've given some attention to the description and workflow and it seems to work at a very micro level of the code. And the metric tools (what has been reviewed, what is not, etc,etc) seems to be non existant.

There are some more mature solutions that perhaps can be adapted to be used with TFS:

• Review board which has originated from VMware
• The venerable Codestriker
• JCR - which unlike other tools doesn't work at the source control level but with whole files

On the commercial side Code Collaborator from Smart Bear has a good reputation and it works with TFS but never tried it either.

[Cross Posted on http://agilior.pt/blogs/tiago.pascoal/archive/2008/12/28/6528.aspx]

When I give a Team System Workshop one of the topics that tends to generate some discusssions is the module about source control and branching (mainly the branching patterns and usage).

Branching is not an easy subject, it normally requires a mindset shift for people who are not used to it. Specially when there are so many ways of doing it.

In TFS 2010 branching is going to be a lot easier  and powerful since the team has been spending a lot of time on branching and visualization support 

When it comes to branching patterns my bible is still Software Configuration Management Patterns: Effective Teamwork, Practical Integration but a few days ago the VSTS Rangers with the collaboration of the VSTS MVP's has launched the second release of the TFS Branching Guide  on codeplex.  This will help TFS users deal with branching scenarios and usages in TFS.

What will you get if you download the package?

• TFS Branching Guide - Main 2.0
  • This is the main article which briefly explains branching concepts and introduces 3 levels of the most common branching scenario
• TFS Branching Guide - Scenarios 2.0
  • A collection of less common branching scenarios
• TFS Branching Guide - Q&A 2.0
  • A set of most frequently asked questions with answers
• TFS Branching Guide - Drawings 2.0
  • A set of branching drawings in different formats including a large branching poster
• TFS Branching Guide - Labs 2.0
  • A couple of examples for hands on labs with step by step instruction for practicing the branching scenarios

[Cross posted on http://agilior.pt/blogs/tiago.pascoal/archive/2008/12/23/6467.aspx]

The Team Foundation Power Tool has just been released.

It includes major news since the last release.

Major features highlights:

• Explorer Extension - That's right you will now be able to do operations on TFS source controlled files directly from windows explorer!!!!
• The concept of Teams (team tools) - The concepts have teams have been introduced. You can see teams inside team explorer (it even has IM integration). It also allows you to have team queries (work items for the team (or sub teams) instead of just my work teams)
• Power Shell Extensions - If you are a scripting  buff youwill love this
• TFS Server Manager - Watch statistics and data about TFS usage (this is the tool Brian Harry uses to give us the TFS dogfood statistics on his blog)

The installer as also been greatly improved (for example the setup is now per machine instead of per user), tfpt.exe had some additions and the help file has been improved.

The Team Tools has a GREAT feature. It allows you to automatically get updates for custom contents (custom controls, check in policies,..) this will greatly reduce the hassle of manually distributing custom controls and check in policies.

Go grab it. I still haven't tried the final version but i have been using a pre release version for a few weeks and it's great (love the team tools).

Kudos for Team System Team to deliver value added tools between the major releases.

It is available for download here 

[Cross Posted on http://agilior.pt/blogs/tiago.pascoal/archive/2008/11/08/5898.aspx]

This is the question I hear a lot.

People install a TFS trial and when they license it with a volume license agreement but they can't find their serial number to upgrade from trial to licensed version.

After failing to find the key, they do the sensible thing. Call Support. :-) Which normally doesn't help.

Here is the recipe to quick found your key.

Download the TFS ISO file from the volume licensing site.

Either burn the image or use an ISO reader to see it's contents.

There should be a folder called AT which contains a file called setup.sdb

Open setup.sdb with a text editor (notepad will do fine) and search for the string Product Key

The next line contains the product key.

Voilá. You are now read to fire up TFS setup (control panel->add/remove programs) and enter your serial key.

On the 10th of March Lenny Fenster released a new version of the Project Server 2007 VSTS Connector.

This releases fixes some bugs and adds support for TFS 2008, unfortunately Lenny forgot (most probably lacked the time to do it) to update the requirements list. We had some issues while upgrading the older version of the connector on a installation still using TFS 2005.

The components install without problems except the connector for Team Foundation server (the third option on the installer). The installer aborts stating it had unexpected error. The log file hasn't any useful information.

After some heavy digging (and nagging Lenny over IM :-)) I figured out that the problem lied  on the fact that the connector installer references to TFS 2008 API instead of TFS 2005

To solve the installation problem you have two choices:

• Install the TFS 2008 API on the server the connector is going to run. The only way to install the API is by installing Team Explorer 2008
• After the first time the installation fails, create a standard .Net policy redirection DLL file configuration file on the installation folder temporary directory (c:\windows\PS2007-TFS Connector) so when the code attempts to to access TFS using the API it uses 2005 API instead of the 2008 version. I haven't gone this path, since this would also involve applying the same redirection on the connector. So in theory this should work but I haven't tested it. :-)

The web site to manage the connector is also configured to use framework 3.5 so you must install framework 3.5 on that machine (if the web site is installed in the same machine as the TFS connector then no need to worry about this since Team Explorer 2008 also installs framework 3.5).

Lost a bunch of hair on this one, I hope this saves you same time if you are in a similar situation.

Just got a mail from Martin Woodward that TeamPrise 3.0 has been released. TeamPrise is an amazing piece of technology that allows you to use Team Foundation Server in a cross platform perspective.

If you have cross platform development environment with developers working on different systems like Linux or Mac OS X there are no excuses not to use Team Foundation Server. TeamPrise is the solution that allows you to access Team Foundation Server from any environment that runs java or the Eclipse IDE.

If you are curious on what is new, you can read the changelog for version 3.0.

If you had attended my session last week on Techdays you could have watched my demoing TeamPrise (still v2.0) running in an Linux Machine. :-)

I have been informed that due to my recent misdeeds I will have to step in and do another session on Techdays.

Although I don't know if this is going to be a punishment for me or if it is my co-presenter Miguel Madeira that is going to be pay the penalty for having me on stage with him. :-)

This is session VST09 and we are going to talk about Team Build, and how you can use it to automate your build present and how you can use on you your agile development process by leveraging the continuous integration capabilities.

Don't worry, if you are yet not aware of what is continuous integration at the end of the session you will. We will explain what is continuous integration, what are the advantages and where does continuous integration fits in Team Build within the build process and the unit testing.

We will also explain how you can leverage the build process to help you in other areas of your development process but we don't want to spoil all the surprises, see you in the session. :-)

[Cross Posted on http://www.agilior.pt/blogs/tiago.pascoal/archive/2008/03/02/3799.aspx]