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VSTS Guidance

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A few years ago, patterns & practices published a book entitled Team Development with Visual Studio .NET and Visual SourceSafe .  The book offered solid advice for teams developing software atop .NET using Visual Studio and Visual SourceSafe.  It covered things like structuring solutions and projects, setting up a build process, working with source control, and even setting up the infrastructure for a team development environment.

As you might imagine, the introduction of Visual Studio Team System pretty much obsoleted the book.  It was a fantastic book in 2002.  But, it was very specific to Visual Studio .NET (2002) and Visual SourceSafe (6.0c).  So, naturally, p&p started receiving requests to update the guide as soon as customers began using VSTS with all of its new team oriented features.

Well, we've been busy working on software factories for a while now.  But, recently, J.D. Meier and crew have been building up a library of VSTS guidance over on CodePlex.  I just spent a few minutes exploring the site.  And, I've got to say that I'm very impressed with the volume and quality of work that J.D.'s team is doing.  (Full disclosure:  I'm a reviewer on some of the work.)  I'm also a big fan of publishing the work as a Wiki on CodePlex.

My congratulations to J.D. and the entire team!  Way to go!  Keep up the great work!

Comments

  • Anonymous
    March 30, 2007
    I have referred to that book a lot. A lot of P&P books were great references in the past. Unfortunately with advent of new offerings from MS they are slowly becoming obsolete. I really wish P&P contines to provide these for new technologies like WCF, AJAX, TFS and ASP.NET 2.0. Wiki are the best way to reach the community before the book goes public.

  • Anonymous
    March 30, 2007
    Thanks for the feedback, Kris!I have a question for you:  Are you requesting that p&p continue to develop new guidance?  (Because that is exactly what we plan to do!)  Or, are you requesting that p&p continue to publish our guidance as hard-copy books?  (Because, most of the feedback we've received tells us that people prefer electronic delivery.)As for WCF guidance, check out p&p Web Service Software Factory.  (http://www.codeplex.com/servicefactory)As for AJAX and ASP.NET 2.0 guidance, check out the p&p Web Client Software Factory. (http://www.codeplex.com/websf)And, of course, for TFS guidance, check out the above referenced VSTS Guidance site.  (http://www.codeplex.com/VSTSGuidance)Enjoy!Alan