Willy-Peter Schaub's Cave of Chamomile Simplicity

Come chat with the Visual Studio Team Ssytem product team - This Wednesday

Join members of the Visual Studio Team System product group to discuss features available in Visual Studio Team Foundation Server, Architecture Edition, Development Edition, Database Edition, and Test Edition. In addition, discuss what's new in Beta 2.

They will be holding two sessions:

Join the chat on Wednesday, August 1^st, 2007 from 10:00am - 11:00am Pacific Time. Add to Calendar | Additional Time Zones

            -or-

Join the chat on Wednesday, August 1^st, 2007 from 4:00pm - 5:00pm Pacific Time. Add to Calendar | Additional Time Zones

Visual Studio 2008 Orcas BETA 2 has landed!

Check out Brian Harry's excellent treasure map to Orcas Beta 2 bits and pieces.

The Beta 2 has finally landed and a huge congratulations to the VSTS/TFS team who have done an immense job. We have been so happy with evaluations of Beta-1, that we are considering dog fooding TFS Orcas Beta-2 ... the productivity and performance benefits are just too immense to ignore.

SA Community ... we are trying to get the bits and pieces to South-Africa on an external drive, as the volume of stuff will once again prove challenging on our infrastructure. I will blog as soon as we have the Beta-2 package!

Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Database Professionals - Service Release

The Service Release for Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Database Professionals has shipped and you can download the SR from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9810808c-9248-41a5-bdc1-d8210a06ed87&displaylang=en

The Service Release 1 patch file is at http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/c/7/6c77f0d1-a868-4892-a065-48e51e0a776d/VS80-KB936612-X86.exe.

The KB article for the release is at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936612/.

What version of TFS data schema am I running?

In my previous TFS versioning post, we queried the TfsIntegration database to determine the TFS version. But does this match the data base schema on the data tier (DT)?

You can execute the following query against the TfsVersionControl database to verify that all is in order in the state of TFS:
SELECT SchemaVersion FROM tbl_repository.

Schema Version  Description

--------------------------------------------------------------------

8.50517.00      Team Foundation Server (TFS) BETA 3 / BETA 3 Refresh

8.50815.00      Team Foundation Server (TFS) BETA 3 / BETA 3 Refresh
                upgraded from BETA 2

8.51103.00      Team Foundation Server (TFS) Community Technology
                Preview (CTP) December 2005 and TFS Release Candidate.

                Warning: Although these two releases share the same 
                                schema number, their schema is not the same.

8.50727.138     Team Foundation Server (TFS) Release to market (RTM)

8.50727.327     Team Foundation Server (TFS) Service Pack 1

Software Engineers on their way to Pluto ... we have a liftoff!

COWABUNGA!

We have just received the green lights to wrapup and print our third book, titled "Software Engineers on their way to Pluto".  If you are in for an exciting journey to Pluto, while investigating 4 typical software development lifecycle environments and watching software engineers build their own spacecraft, then give us a shout and book your copy.

Extract from the back cover:

This book continues the discussion and sharing of best practices we introduced with the books ".NET Enterprise Solutions … Best Practices for the connoisseur, ISBN: 0-620-33013-9" and .NET Enterprise Solutions … Interoperability for the Connoisseur, ISBN: 0-620-234680-9.

Unlike its predecessors this book is not focused on technology, but instead takes a critical look at how we are typically building information technology solutions, the way we define the modus-operandi of the team and the product life cycle.

- Why are so many solutions failing before they reach a "happy" client?

- Why are so many solution teams stressed before they ship their solution?

We do not have the answer and will probably never find the necessary oracle … but we will nevertheless take a look at four typical teams, building their own spaceship and flying to Pluto therein.

How big do you think a coconut crab is?

My colleague Nicolas forwarded me this picture ... awesome ... imagine bringing out the trash at night, barefoot and pondering about the stars above, only to be greeted by this crab.

Thanks Nic!

Technology Readiness Program - Schedule for July and August (FYI)

In case you have been wondering what is happening with out technology readiness program in the BB&D DRP and saArchitect readiness space. Here is the tentative schedule:

1. Orcas ... What is new with C#                                   Garret           2007/07/18 09:00
2. Orcas ... What is new with VSTS?                                Willy-Peter      2007/07/20 09:00
3. Enterprise Libraries 3.0                                        Douglas          2007/07/25 09:00
4. Sharepoint ... Visual Designer                                  Jean-Pierre      2007/07/27 09:00
5. **Available**                                                                    2007/08/01 09:00
6. Exposing the C# Enhancements and LINQ to developers             Andre & Alistair 2007/08/01 09:00
7. Sharepoint Enterprise Search ... What is it and what can we do? Geoff            2007/08/15 09:00
8. Orcas ... What is new with TFS?                                 Willy-Peter      2007/08/17 09:00
9. TFS ... Customising the TFS Build                               Geoff            2007/08/22 09:00
10. Information Worker ... Drilldown 300 Overview (Info Share)      Jean-Pierre      2007/08/24 09:00
11. TFS ... Using 3rd Party Environments with TFS                   Geoff            2007/08/29 09:00

What version of TFS am I running?

A common question we are faced with in the field is "what TFS version am I actually running".

The easiest way to get a holistic version view is to execute the GetTFSVersion stored procedure in the TFSIntegration database.

If you need more meat on the bones, have a look at http://blogs.msdn.com/richardb/archive/2007/02/22/install-sequence-vsts-sp1-tfs-sp1-vista-quiescing-oh-my.aspx, which summarises the versions as follows:

Peek at the Microsoft.TeamFoundation.dll or some of the other TFS core assemblies and compare with the above list.

TFS VSTS Quick reference poster - Planning hints

The first version of the “checklist” quick reference "0202 Microsoft Team System Planning" poster has been posted on http://www.drp.co.za/Media/Posters/tabid/73/Defaul... in PDF and high-quality JPG format.