Anyone would like to share their experience using TFS for Application life cycle management

Question

we are developing white label web and mobile healthcare application for our clients. our product is evolving rapidly and we are supporting existing clients and going to support new clients.

current development workflow involves SVN for source code, requirement documents tracking and mantis for defect tracking.

We are considering VS TFS 2010 based Application life cycle management for our organization. we are hoping that VS TFS 2010 will help us streamline the following

1) Requirements Management 2) Source code Version control 3) Build automation 4) Test management

just wondering is anybody have experience using VS TFS 2010 and would like to share their experiences? is there any worthwhile alternatives to VS TeamSystem?

Answer 1

Preface: This is a personal opinion and I have no ties to Microsoft other than that I develop with their tools for their platform, even though I come across as a Microsoft lover in this answer. (which I am - I love .NET development)

I haven't used TFS 2010, but I HAVE used the 2005 Team Suite including TFS and the Visual Studio versions supported. We didn't move forward to 2008 or 1020 because of how extraordinarily difficult the 2005 version was to install. However, once we got it installed... Loved it. The project management tools were intuitive, and worked well. Setting up builds was a breeze, and it did everything I wanted it to do simply and efficiently.

Since then, however, we've adopted open source tools to do the same type of stuff. As I said, the install of 2005 was a NIGHTMARE and even though the 2010 version of Team Foundation Server installs VERY easily (I tested it myself and demonstrated it to the poor team who helped with the 2005 version just to show them how much better it is), I was unable to convince my team to give it a second chance. They chose to stick with tools that didn't need to be upgraded as often, and that were easier to upgrade when it did need to be done.

If it were just me, I'd be using it. This is one of those things where things just work right, and work together seamlessly. And the available documentation (MSDN, videos, etc) is exhaustive. I doubt any other set of tools is as well-documented.

It's just too bad that the experience with the older version was so bad that nobody else here will give the newer version a fair shake.

As for alternatives - it's not open source, but Atlassian has a nice set of tools. They work well for Java and we're using some of them in our .NET shop. We're using SVN for source control. That's about the only thing I like better about our new environment than I did the Team System.

Answer 2

I started at a new company 2 months back that uses TFS 2010 exclusively (for source control and issue/task tracking), and I haven't been able to get comfortable with it. Previously, I've mainly used SVN for source control and either OnTime (by Axosoft) or Fogbugz (Joel Spolsky) and have loved them both.

I don't know if it's the way they're using TFS (branching is nothing as nice as it was in SVN... and they have Product Backlog Items, Sprint Backlog Items, Bugs, Impediments, and god knows what else to keep track of) but I find it way too convoluted.

I think the tools a developer uses should assist the dev, not get in the way of. If I have to stop and think about how to branch code or assign an issue, then something's wrong with my tools (or I just need to spend more time learning them... which doesn't make sense to me either).