IT Bytes

Team System is a great suite of tools, providing you can afford it, for developing software. However, it does represent a significant investment to move an existing team of developers onto it. Rather than moving in a "Big bang" approach my current team are progressing in a steady rate by using all Team System editions for development and we’re about to use Foundation Server’s source control. What we didn’t want to do was take all the process guidance, at least not yet. After some annoying problems installing the software, if ever you need to slavishly follow a readme this is it, I finally got the server running. I had been told that you cannot easily use the Source Control without taking the process guidance. Well this is true, but to a lesser extent. To use the Source Control you must create a Team Project and yes that does involve selecting a process. However, once selected you don’t have to switch on any of the policies. What does that mean? Well when you check code in you do get a dialog that allows you to type in extra details, assign work items, etc but since the policies for the process aren’t on, it doesn’t nag or even prompt you. So effectively you have Source Control like Visual Source Safe but with all the juicy advantages of Team System’s Source Control. Now to get someone else to edit my demo project and see how easy it is to work in the, "don’t lock files when checked out" mode. Sounds like utopia but will probably be more like hell!