In need of version control
A friend of mine, that I’ll keep anonymous, asked me to help her with an ASP page that didn’t work.
The changes she made wasn’t visible when she ran the script on the server. I got most of it running on my local machine and thought there should be no problem running it on the production server.
A couple of hours later the ASP file contained nothing but plain HTML and it still wasn’t working. By this time she was convinced the web server was serving an old file to visitors.
(No it wasn’t a caching issue.)
I didn’t hear from her in about two hour until she told me the issue was solved. Clearly a bit ashamed she told me she had an intern working for her. They had been working on the same file and none of them had a development server, so they were both uploading their versions of the same file to the server.
Not considering the lack of coordination and development environments, they definitively would have been better off using version control.
A formal build-and-deploy process becomes essential.
I’m reading Pro BizTalk 2006 by Apress and a section in the chapter about setting up a new BizTalk project made me a little upset.
The author thinks it is a disadvantage that: ‘A formal build-and-deploy process becomes essential.‘
WTF; in an organization big enough to think about, and afford, BizTalk I would say that a formal build-and-deploy process is a prerequisite. Since BizTalk is a lot, if not all, about integrating different systems and organizations having a strict configuration management is essential to keep the cost down and the quality up.
It is a nightmare to find, and correct, errors that exists because there is version inconsistency between the partners in an integration project. I find that having a formal build-and-deploy process is almost essential even for a small one man project. I’d even say it’s more important the more infrequent there is work done on a small project.
On a software project, of any kind, there has to be a formal build-and-deploy process in place as soon as there is artifacts to be delivered from a developer.
OpenSVN; A free SVN repository
This is just a plug for OpenSVN a free subversion repository.
I use it for keeping my university work so I can reach it from all my computers and revert to old version of reports and source code.
Sourceforge also uses subversion, but I guess my school work doesn’t really apply as an open source project. I have logview4net hosted there though.
Edit 2009-06-28:
Since I wrote this post I have moved all my Subversion repositories, except the SourceForge ones, to my Dreamhost account.
If you enter '090OFF' as promotion code you will get $90 off of the plan you choose.
I am actually surprised that it works so well for a cheap web host.
Cheat sheet for TF.exe
Here’s a nice roundup of commands for TF.exe
TFS Server with friendly DNS name
Since I didn’t find this info the first time I searched I’ll add it here to.
This is what you have to do to get the Team Explorer to work correctly if your TFS Server has a different DNS name than it’s machine name.
http://geekswithblogs.net/etiennetremblay/archive/2006/07/28/86542.aspx
…and what is really missing in that instruction is to disconnect/reconnect you project in Team Explorer since all URL’s are cached on the client.
Attrice Corporation Team Foundation Sidekicks
Attrice Corporation Team Foundation Sidekicks
From the site:
Team Foundation Sidekicks is a suite of tools for Microsoft Team Foundation Server Administrators and advanced users providing Graphic User Interface for administrative and advanced version control tasks in multi-user TFS environments.
Build or release ?
From Wikipedia:
In the field of computer software the term software build refers either to the process of converting source code files into executable code or the result of doing so.
A software release refers to the distribution, whether public or private, of an initial or new and upgraded version of a computer software product.
BSDAgile – Team System Project Template for Extreme Programming
Team Foundation Server Implementation Guidance
The home page of Team System
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/teamsystem/default.aspx
