Academia - VSTS/Java Interoperability Road Show: Day 2
When we arrived at University of Cape Town we were amazed by the university and the vibe, although the fog hid most of the surrounding mountains for most of the morning.
We had a great session with Elsje and Karl, followed by our demonstration of TFS and Teamprise to about 100 students ... a real experience and a nerve rattler, as the demo gremlin decided to visit the Linux laptop. However, pour resident Penguin Henk and our "server dude" Zayd kept their nerves, exterminated the gremlin and proceeded with the demonstration of the non-Microsoft development environment integrating seamless with Team Foundation Server (TFS). Teamprise is such an exciting product and if you are working in a Java environment, especially when using Eclipse, you should give it a test drive.
The 250GB external drive was won by Ziyad! Congratulations ... hope you will enjoy the drive!
Some interesting questions we received and our response in italic:
- What is the difference between SourceSafe and Team Foundation Server (TFS)?
SourceSafe is a a file-level version control system, whereas TFS is a an integrated Application Life-cycle Management (ALM) solution offering a number of services, including version control. - Can I access TFS across the internet?
Yes, whereby we recommend using a virtual private network (VPN) connection, as placing the TFS services onto the internet can attract complex security issues. - What is the value of TFS to a project manager?
TFS promotes collaboration amongst all team stakeholders and allows the management stakeholders to gain visibility into project activities, including visibility of the code, test and build health. - What is the value of TFS over stringing a solution together with solutions such as SourceSafe, SubVersion, SharePoint and/or Bugzilla?
TFS couples work items with source code, with builds, ... in other words TFS offers an integrated ALM solution that allows stakeholders to analyse the current and historical state of a solution, something that is complex to achieve with completely de-coupled solutions. - What is Shelving?
MSDN quote: Shelving a set of changes is very similar to checking in a set of changes. The major difference is that when you check in, your changes are shared by the rest of the team. When you shelve work, your changes are preserved in a private branch, and are not integrated with what the rest of the team is working on.
The drive to the airport was as crammed as in the morning ... lots of stuff, packed into a small car. As Henk would say, "note to self ... ask for bigger vehicle next time".
Next stop is Rhodes university in Grahamstown ... see you tomorrow.