.Net and VisualStudio ALM
Posts tagged Visual Studio vNext
VS 11 & TFS 11: A beta version on February 29th 2012
Feb 24th
Good news, the next version of Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server are coming in Beta with a Go Live licence on February 29th (the same date that the Windows 8 consumer preview 
).
Here is a list of the products which where announced for Visual Studio 11:
- Visual Studio 11 Professional
- Visual Studio 11 Premium
- Visual Studio 11 Ultimate
- Visual Studio 11 Test Professional
- Visual Studio 11 Team Foundation Server
- Visual Studio 11 Team Foundation Server Express
- Visual Studio 11 Team Foundation Service
Compared to the 2010 line we have two new additions. The first, Team Foundation Server Express is a free edition of TFS with the following limitations:
- 5 users max,
- can only be installed on SQLServer Express,
- only “single server” install mode,
- no Sharepoint integration,
- no Reporting Services integration,
- the web interface only proposes the Agile taskboard (no backlog management or feedback feature),
- no TFS proxy.
Note that this version will be compatible with Visual Studio Express, Microsoft is now proposing a comprehensive development tools package for “unprofessional” developers! Of course it will be possible to upgrade an Express platform to add users through the purchase of CAL (Client Access License) or add the missing functionality by switching to the full version of TFS 11 :)
The second addition is Team Foundation Service. It is a TFS version which runs on Azure and is actually in test phase at http://www.tfspreview.com. This version on Azure has, for now, all TFS features except Sharepoint, Reporting Services and build (the build can be installed on-premises and connected to TFS on Azure).
Il come back in futur post in details on new features of Visual Studio 11 and Team Foundation Server 11. While waiting here are a list of links on this beta version:
- Introduction to Visual Studio 11 Beta (Visual Studio blog)
- Visual Studio 11 product line (Visual Studio site)
Carpe Diem.
VS vNext: News on vNext of TFS and VS
Sep 17th
This week was rich in announcement both on the next version of Windows and the next versions of Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server. Here is a short summary of what was said on our favorite development tools:
Cette semaine a été riche en nouvelle tant au niveau de la prochaine version de Windows que des futurs versions de Visual Studio et Team Foundation Server. Voici un petit récapitulatif des annonces faites pour nos outils de développement préférés :
- A preview of Team Foundation Server sur Windows Azure is available. You need a invitation code to subscribe so, if you’re interested, follow the blog of Brian Harry who will certainly propose some more code in the future Here’s the URL of the service: http://tfspreview.com.
- Visual Studio 11 Developer preview and Team Foundation Server 11 Developer preview are available. I’ll come back on those in future posts. Meanwhile you can download them here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/fr-fr/vstudio/hh127353
- If you do not want to mess (or lose time ) with the install of those previews, Brian Keller published a virtual machine ready to use Here’s the link: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/briankel/archive/2011/09/16/visual-studio-11-application-lifecycle-management-virtual-machine-and-hands-on-labs-demo-scripts.aspx
That’s all for now. I’m going back to my VMs installation to prepare my next posts on TFS 11 and VS 11 installation experience and their new features
Carpe Diem.
VisualStudio vNext: ALM roadmap in video
May 18th
I was talking yesterday about the ALM roadmap announced by Microsoft at the Teched North America 2011. The video of Cameron Skinner’s presentation “The Future of Microsoft Visual Studio Application Lifecycle Management” is now online. You can now see those new features in action
Carpe Diem.
VisualStudio vNext : ALM roadmap
May 17th
Yesterday began the Teched North America conference and Microsoft has finally announced their vision for ALM (Application Lifecycle Management) in the next version of Visual Studio.
This version concentrates around :
- Agile developments.
- Interaction with stakeholders.
- Interaction with opérations.
Here’s a quick overview of what was announced.
Lightweight requirements
To quickly manager requirements (thus the lightweight), a plugin for PowerPoint will be available. This plugin will help create storyboards in a familiar environment to allow for stakeholders feedback. One of the great advantage of this solution is that after completing your storyboard you’ll have a real presentation to show.
Stakeholders feedback
Storyboarding your application using PowerPoint before starting the development enable a first feedback. To have access to feedback when developing, Microsoft will introduce a new tool based on the Visual Studio Test Professional 2010 Test Runner. This tool will collect various data (video, audio, user actions, …) while the user is exploring the application. At any time he will be able to fill a feedback which will create a work item in TFS containing all the collected data.
On the web access web site, a tab for feedback is present to facilitate communication between the development team and the stakeholders.
Agile planning
Agile methodologies are increasingly used. Microsoft revised his web access interface to simplify Agile planning. We’ll find:
- A backlog management page where we can easly reorder items using drag & drop.
- A capacity planning interface (before you had to user Excel workbooks)
- A task board to follow and update work items status using drag & drop.
As you can see on the screenshots, the web site style was modified to follow the METRO design guidelines. Using the guideline, HTML and AJAX, the web site is now really reactive and usable for day-to-day work.
Continuous unit testing
Using unit tests is know a common task but in the field this can be hard because you need to remember to execute them and it can takes some time depending on the number of tests you have. The next version of Visual Studio will have some enhancements:
- The UI was redone to help see whats important for the developer.
- Unit tests are now automatically run in background.
- The unit test explorer will support new test frameworks !! We will find MSTest, NUnit and XUnit. If your favorite test framework is not one of those, Microsoft has added extensibility point so that you can add the support for your own framework
Exploratory tests
Some bugs are not found during quality testing. We speak of exploratory tests when the user is free to do whatever he wants with the applucation to find bugs (not following a scripted scenario). In those case it can be difficult to have repro steps when a bug is found. To help with those scenario, Visual Studio will support those tests by using as new Test Runner without steps. This tool will, like the test runner, collects data while the user does his test so that they can be added to the bug work item.
Intégration avec System Center
To support interaction with operations, Microsoft will release a new connector for System Center Operation Manager. This connector will be able to create work item in TFS when a problem is found using SCOM on an application in production. For the fans of IntelliTrace, Microsoft will have an IntelliTrace version for production scenario!
Enhanced User Experience
The Team Explorer tab in Visual Studio will be replaced by a new Team Navigator. It will be simpler to use and will support the notion of work context. What’s this? When a developer will start to work on a new task, he’ll indicate it using the UI. Visual Studio will track the modification done and will link them to the current task. If the developer needs to switch task (for a bug correction for example), Visual Studio will package all the context and linked it to the task. When the user will resume this task after completing the other one, all the context associated with the task will be restored automatically!
And much more
Other features were talked about like a new code review tool, a new comparison tool, … for more information you can read the “Visual Studio vNext: Application Lifecycle Management” whitepaper released yesterday.
Carpe Diem.
