Question: Any opinion on branch per developer approach? This is the first time I have come across it someplace and feel that there's just no reason too. I've been through the branching guidance and even use your article in MSDN magazine from earlier this year as reference. The development teams are offshore...

As we begin planning the next release of the branching guidance, a top priority is to address how to manage shared code dependencies (the Dependency Repository / Shared Code issue). The newly release Build Customization Guide (now available for download from Codeplex) begins to address this issue, primarily...

Customer scenario: How should I isolate (and integrate) changes when working with: 3 parallel efforts (two parallel development efforts, working on separate releases of the product and production support) Production(version 2.0) with the need to issue hotfixes on then current production version Development...

A customer asks the following question: “ We are building factory machine. New machines are usually delivered with the current stable software version. We don't do regular updates because our customers prefer stability over new features. After reading the Rangers Branching Guide I have some questions...

In the February 2011 issue of MSDN Magazine, I wrote an article on Shared Code (or code dependencies as some call it). Often I see a common problem with relative references to dependent assemblies or projects. If relative references are not created properly for a solution that is branched, the relative...

Read the latest issue: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/gg602477.aspx Co-authored with Willy-Peter Schaub. Now that the article is published, I will go into more detail on this topic. Space limitations in the article prevented being as detailed as I would have liked.

Download the latest VS ALM Rangers Branching Guidance Here: http://tfsbranchingguideiii.codeplex.com/   Background – I keep getting this question: I have a quick question for you on branching in Scrum and feature management.  My client is using Scrum and if we look at the branching structure...

This article presents a perspective on Source Control Management (SCM) using Team Foundation Server (TFS) with Scrum projects. Although I start with a short overview of Scrum to lay the foundation for the concepts, the essence of this article is to present TFS Branching Concepts for Scrum projects, large...

I recently received a question from a customer who is dealing with the need to support multiple feature teams working on multiple releases in development. They asked how to structure branching to support this environment. Background: My company is, for all practical purposes, a dot com. We have a single...

I was recently asked a question based on the following presentation from Google: How Google Speeds Up The Chrome Release Cycle (Slideshow) The main part of the article that interests me is the following: "Anthony LaForge, the technical program manager at Google overseeing Chrome development, created...

After a few years hiatus, i am returning to the world of *published author*. My next article will be published in the February 2011 issue of MSDN Magazine ( http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/default.aspx ) The topic will be *Visual Studio ALM Rangers Branching Guidance for Team Foundation Server...

Question from customer: “I am very new to this branching  concept and try to understand.  I am not able understand the difference between the Single release vs. single team branching. Can someone help in knowing the difference.” Response: I like to think of branching for development separately...

In October, the VS ALM Rangers posted the Branching Guidance - German version   thanks to Boris Wehrle , Thorsten Dralle , and Sven Hubert .

  In answer to the following question: “Are you advising that we wait until the build on Main is stable and all dependent systems are ready before we attempt to deploy anything?  This makes a hard-to-hit-target nearly impossible to hit (we have multiple teams, so it is already complex as it...

  Recently I was asked a question: “If you discourage changeset-based (or cherry-picking) merging, then why does TFS support it?  To me it feels like TFS is not fully supporting it because the merge engine isn't robust enough yet to support it, yet they know the feature is important. ...

In October, the VS ALM Rangers posted the Branching Guidance - Spanish version   thanks to Francisco Fagas , a VS ALM MVP. Francisco also translated the Visual Studio 2010 Quick Reference Guidance – Spanish version ).

Project Description The purpose of this project is to build some insightful and practical guidance around branching and merging with Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010. The new release focuses on Hands on Labs and includes lots of lessons learned from the community Q&A. Visual Studio Team...

As many of you know, Branches are now a first-class object in TFS 2010. In Source Control Explorer, it is now very easy to visualize the difference between a branch and a folder. Folders are now used exclusively as containers of branches, files, and other folders. The MatureSourceTree example below shows...

A key message the VSTS Rangers are trying to communicate in the VSTS Rangers Branching Guide 2.0 ( http://tfsbranchingguideii.codeplex.com/ ) is that different companies have different needs and requirements for parallel development or release support (servicing). This is why we presented a progression...

Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) Rangers Team System Rangers deliver out of band solutions for missing features and guidance in the Team System suite of products. Checkout our new site: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/teamsystem/ee358786.aspx

I recently had a series of email exchanges with a person who was trying to advise his customer on a branching plan. As part of this exchange I offered the following discussion on Branching for Development. I often like to separate the discussion of the development branch plan and the release branch plan...

Question: “I recognise the need to FI from MAIN to each DEV/CR branch on a regular basis, is there a way to automate this to run on check-in or every night perhanps? I've looked into this and keep reading about CI - but I can't find any practical demonstrations of how this might be achieved.” My Response...

Question from TFS Branching Guide 2.0 on Codeplex: “I am creating a new branch for each 'Change Request' that comes from the client - I love the idea of isolating the code this way. Do I have to create a new build definition for each, or am I missing something really straight forward? It seems like overkill...

Within a Team Project, everything starts with the MAIN branch. This is a consistent theme with all our guidance ( http://tfsbranchingguideii.codeplex.com/ ). The question becomes, when do you need to create one or more branches for development? My answer would be that one goal of a good branch plan is...

Question: I have a request from a customer regarding the Branching/Merging Model in TFS 2010. The customer has the following branch model: Main->Rel. A -> Rel. B ->Rel. C -> Rel. D. Today (TFS 2008) it is practical impossible to Merge D->Main without going through back to C...