Il blog di Giulio Vian

Automatically execute Coded UI test on different Lab VMs

Giulio Vian — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 14:47:31 GMT

Imagine this scenario: you are working in setting up the Lab Management features of TFS 2010. The main purpose is to execute automated tests. The customer asked to have a lab environment able to test different clients OS, namely Windows XP and Windows...(read more)

Build Guidance is out

Giulio Vian — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 16:47:10 GMT

The Rangers Build Customization Guide is public on Codeplex and I am happy this is over… for while. Willy and Bijan are very demanding on ALM Rangers and already started on new projects and team. I do not like repeating, so get the details from...(read more)

Migrating to TFS 2010 from multiple TFS 200x servers

Giulio Vian — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 16:21:52 GMT

The other day a question came from a colleague, that sounded like this. My client has been using TFS for many years now and has a production deployment consisting of about 4 TFS 2008 servers containing about 50, 50, 25 & 25 team projects respectively...(read more)

BizTalk 2009 and TFS 2010

Giulio Vian — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 06:45:48 GMT

A very welcome news, today. The BizTalk team released to public an hotfix to let BizTalk projects (.btproj) to compile successfully under TeamBuild 2010 ( http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2406405 ). I discovered the issues myself and worked with...(read more)

SettingsMerger on CodePlex

Giulio Vian — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 17:20:09 GMT

Yesterday, I published Sprinkler on CodePlex and today I completed my efforts with another tool: SettingsMerger . This tool takes a number of Excel files, in the format required by XmlPreprocess / EnvironmentSettingsExporter , and outputs a single Excel...(read more)

Sprinkler on CodePlex

Giulio Vian — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 16:05:19 GMT

Today I published on CodePlex my first project, Sprinkler . It is both a tool and a framework, based on Powershell v2, aimed at simplifying deployment of applications, especially BizTalk-based. It stands on the shoulders of giants as it extends the Deployment...(read more)

Documentation on customizing TeamBuild 2010

Giulio Vian — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 11:42:59 GMT

It’s been a while, that I don’t write anything here. More will come in the next weeks about deployment. Today is just a piece of news: a new MSDN page on Customizing Team Foundation Build . Take also a look at Andy Lewis’ blog on this topic. Precious...(read more)

New look but don’t give me credit

Giulio Vian — Wed, 26 May 2010 06:16:23 GMT

See Sean Jenkin's blog for the who, when, why, how, … For sure they did a great job: just think the amount of work they have done. Thousand of geeky blogs to migrate, each with its own tweaks and customizations (aren’t they geek?). Once I helped migrate...(read more)

Quick XPath test

Giulio Vian — Tue, 25 May 2010 07:50:00 GMT

Some time ago a colleague asked for help: he needed to write a XPath query that seemed complex. I suggested him to use VS and a simple XSLT as a quick debugging environment. Create a new XSLT file, substitute the template code with the following content...(read more)

Build Identifier Tasks

Giulio Vian — Thu, 06 May 2010 07:12:00 GMT

This post is a follow-up to “ Builds: how many? ” and drills down how to compute the version number during the build. I assume knowledge of customizing the build identifier: you do not read the docs: “ How to: Customize Build Numbers ” for TFS 2008 and...(read more)

Gotcha: MSBuild nested loops (double batching)

Giulio Vian — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 06:28:28 GMT

I admit I didn’t get it on my first, quick, reading of “ Inside the Microsoft Build Engine: Using MSBuild and Team Foundation Build ” that MSBuild batching is somewhat counter-intuitive. I needed to have a nested loop in my script, like this pseudo code...(read more)

Pre/post-build event

Giulio Vian — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 13:33:29 GMT

This is a tip for all developers, not for BuildMasters only. The issue is those pre and post-build events that developers use to add any conceivable code… especially code that assume a developer’s workstation folder structure. Such code may break in a...(read more)

Drop: latest and previous

Giulio Vian — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 14:59:00 GMT

One small issue with the default layout of the Drop folder in TeamBuild is the lack of a fixed position for the outputs: binaries are written in $(DropLocation)\$(BuildNumber) and the latter is different at each build. Many times is convenient having...(read more)

Some TeamBuild errors

Giulio Vian — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 16:46:00 GMT

Today I have three interesting build errors that may happen and I want to spare you the time it took me to understand their causes. TF215085 / TF214007 This error may appear in your first build run: it says «An error occurred while connecting to agent...(read more)

Resolve a $ path in TeamBuild

Giulio Vian — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 18:39:00 GMT

There are some really useful TeamBuild tasks whose purpose or usage is not immediate. Such is WorkspaceItemConverterTask : it allows to transform a $ path — that is the path to a file or folder in TFS Version Control — to the physical path that the file...(read more)

Builds: how many?

Giulio Vian — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 13:45:00 GMT

Update ( 2011-03-21 ) Changed table layout. An interesting question I rarely see discussed is: how many build should I plan for in my project and how do they relate each other. This latter point is of paramount importance as it drives us...(read more)

Testing the build

Giulio Vian — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 16:08:00 GMT

This is a topic I haven’t frequently read about, so I will describe my personal findings and techniques. Testing My technique to testing the build itself is based on those assumptions: you need to test incremental change to your build, even when the project...(read more)

Continuous Integration scoping

Giulio Vian — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 06:33:00 GMT

An issue you may have with Continuous Integration (CI) is this: whichever files you check-in, TFS will kick-off a CI build. Too often this is not what you want: the CI build should limit to monitor the trunk or a particular branch, and may only a portion...(read more)

Where the build script reside

Giulio Vian — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 06:13:00 GMT

This is a corollary of the Codeline Organization post. Where do I place the build script are in the Version Control? My opinion is to store them under the trunk or branch, i.e. inside the codeline. Please note that your actual branching structure is ininfluent...(read more)

Codeline Organization

Giulio Vian — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 14:15:05 GMT

Caveat: this post is not about branches but the content of the trunk and, as consequence, of the branches; look at Visual Studio TFS Branching Guide 2010 for more information about branching. So, what I will write about? On the organization of the various...(read more)

Back to writing

Giulio Vian — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:29:14 GMT

It’s been a looong time since I posted anything on this blog. I apologize with my twenty-five readers, but I prepared a bunch of posts, mostly on the build and deploy as it' has been my duty in the last months. See you soon....(read more)

Per gli appassionati di PowerShell

Giulio Vian — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 14:22:23 GMT

e magari anche per altri che vogliono trovare un punto di appoggio in italiano , ecco che è nato http://www.powershell.it/ Buona fortuna,...(read more)

Ma Team Foundation Server è usato in Microsoft?

Giulio Vian — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 17:28:39 GMT

La risposta breve è sì. Penso sia più interessante però saperne qualcosa di più. È usato da "gruppuscoli" minoritari? No. Ad esempio è usato praticamente da tutti i gruppi che sviluppano il Framework .Net,...(read more)

COM senza registrazione e file Manifest

Giulio Vian — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 13:20:43 GMT

C'è un piccolo gioiello in Visual Studio C++ 2005 ed è il Manifest tool (mt). Qualcuno avrà letto degli articoli come Registration-Free Activation of COM Components: A Walkthrough che spiegano che da Windows XP è possibile utilizzare...(read more)

Xe .NET

Giulio Vian — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 12:46:00 GMT

Venerdì sera son andato all'incontro ( http://www.xedotnet.org/48/section.aspx/282 ) dello User Group locale. Cos'è uno User Group? In breve è un gruppo di persone, tipicamente riunito in una assocazione no-profit per scambiare esperienze e diffondere...(read more)