Jeff Lynch [MVP]

April 2007 - Posts

• Team Foundation Server: Team Project Structure Guidance

  Doug Neumann [MSFT] has released a great little whitepaper called Guidance for Structuring Team Projects on CodePlex. It's a great read if you're still getting started with Team Foundation Server and can't decide how to structure your team projects and source control. Back in early February, I wrote a post called Team Foundation Server: Project and Source Control Structure where I explained how our development team had decided to structure one ongoing project. I'm still not sure we're using the best project structure (we create one team project per major "application" we are working on) but so far, it works just fine. We've also decided to start looking at the TFS Orcas Beta 1 bits now rather than later. It's our hope (after viewing the recent Channel 9 video) that the new features in TFS Orcas will help us manage our corporate development efforts with less time spent on management and administration and more time on development (the fun stuff!). I'll let you know how it goes! Posted Apr 28 2007, 10:42 AM by jlynch with no comments Filed under: Orcas, Team Foundation Server, Visual Studio Team System

• Update on Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals

  My team has been using VS DBPro (DataDude) for a little over six months now and I thought I give you an update on how we use this tool in a "mixed" environment (SQL Management Studio & DataDude), what we like and what we'd like to see in future releases. Using SQL Management Studio & Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals Together The first thing we found in our implementation of VS DBPro was that it took a serious effort (and some arm twisting) to overcome our bad development habit of opening SQL Management Studio for a "quick & dirty change" to a live database. Sometimes working in disconnected mode via VS DBPro it seemed as if we were taking a lot longer to complete a task than if we were working "connected" in SQL Management Studio. Given the small size of our team, we really needed to find a way to work quickly but safely during database development and using both tools together seems to have done the trick. How This Works We usually begin by "reverse engineering" an existing database using  the VS DBPro (DataDude) import wizard and then verify the results using the Schema Compare tool. Then we create a "sandbox" copy of the original database on our local workstations or on a shared test SQL instance by building and deploying the project. We may also use SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) to copy representative data from the original database to our sandbox or we generate test data using the VS DBPro Data Generation tool. Once everything is setup, we load our source code into our Team Foundation Server instance for safekeeping. We then use whichever toolset (SQL Management Studio or VS DBPro) makes the most sense to modify our sandbox database but we never (EVER) touch the live database for "quick & dirty" changes. We make our changes using SQL Management Studio, import them into our VS DBPro projects using the Schema Compare tool, then test our changes, build our projects and check in our changes to TFS just as you would in any other development language. Then and only then, do we use the VS DBPro's Schema Compare tool to build our incremental change scripts that we run against our production database. This gives us the best of both worlds by allowing us to work "connected" to our sandbox database using SQL Management Studio but still have an easy way to test, build and store our SQL code using VS DBPro. I've found this to be a very workable solution until VS DBPro (DataDude) contains all the same functionality (table designers, query execution plans, database diagrams, etc.) that SQL Management Studio does. This also allows each DB developer to work with the tools he or she is most comfortable with and this is vital for developer productivity! What We Really Like! The four main features that we really love about VS DBPro (DataDude) are the Schema Import, Schema Compare & Data Compare, Source Control (in TFS) and the Initial Deployment experience. These four features really do change the way that database development is done and they alone make the product worthwhile to own. For details about these features be sure to read my previous posts! The Future of VS DBPro (Publicly Available Information Only - I Promise) Jeff Beehler recently announced the Team System Roadmap in his blog. Last month I had the incredible opportunity to sit down with several members of the Visual Studio team that is responsible for developing VS DBPro (Cameron Skinner, Robert Merriman, Mairead O'Donovan, Richard Waymire and others) to discuss this roadmap and I've never walked away from a meeting more enthusiastic about the future. Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals - Service Release 1 Gert Drapers, the team's Architect has written a great post about the first service release for VS DBPro (DataDude). This service release builds upon the RTM version by adding three new features; Database References, File Group Support and SQLCMD Variable Support. It also adds "official" support for SQL Server 2005 SP2 and Vista. Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals - Power Tools The VS DBPro team has been very very busy and is working on a set of power tools to enhance the functionality of the Service Release 1 bits. The planned power tools include "Move Schema Refactoring", "Schema & Data Compare MSBuild Tasks", "Schema Object Dependency Tree", "SQL Static Code Analysis", "Support for Fully-Qualified Names" and "Schema Reporting" as well as a few others. Visual Studio Orcas, Rosario & Beyond If you read between the lines in Mairead O'Donovan's recent blog posts (1, 2) you can get a feel for what the team is looking at for future releases of VS DBPro. Obviously, the future of any product is not set in stone, but it's great to see how VS DBPro is evolving and growing into a full featured database development platform. Technorati Tags: Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals, DataDude Posted Apr 10 2007, 07:41 AM by jlynch with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Visual Studio 2005

• Off Topic: MVP Renewal (On April Fools Day)

  Here's a good question! If you receive your MVP renewal on April Fools Day should you be worried? Seriously, I'd like to thank everyone on the Commerce Server team for a great first year as an MVP and renewing my status for another year. Being an MVP has opened many doors for me as a developer, manager and (sometimes rather pushy) Microsoft customer and the relationships I've been able to develop have added a great richness to my life. I'd also like to thank my Codebetter.com friends Darrel Norton, Jeffrey Palermo, Peter Van Ooijen, Brendan Tompkins, Jay Kimble, Steve Hebert, Jeremy Miller, Raymond Lewallen, Eric Wise, Sam Gentile, David Hayden, John Papa, Scott Bellware, Karl Seguin, Greg Young, Rod Paddock and our newest member Jean-Paul Boodhoo. You are by far, some of the best architects, developers and managers that I've ever been privileged to know! And a special thanks to Darrel, Jeffrey, Jeremy, Raymond, Sam, Scott, Karl and Jean-Paul for allowing me to hang with you during the MVP Summit. It was a blast! PS: Ben Miller - It was great meeting you in person! Posted Apr 01 2007, 11:17 AM by jlynch with 6 comment(s)