Eric Jarvi : VSTS Tips

VSTS Web Access Power Tool

ejarvi — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 04:16:00 GMT

Now with linkable web pages!

http://blogs.msdn.com/bharry/archive/2007/11/30/vsts-web-access-power-tool-for-team-system-2008-released.aspx

Security & Perf Videos

ejarvi — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 23:32:00 GMT

J.D. Meier has posted a decent index of videos covering performance testing, ASP.NET 2.0, and VSTS:

http://blogs.msdn.com/jmeier/archive/2007/11/22/videos-security-performance-testing-and-visual-studio-team-system.aspx

Team System Web Access Power Tool

ejarvi — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 02:03:00 GMT

Details on Brian Harry's blog:

http://blogs.msdn.com/bharry/archive/2007/07/30/team-system-web-access-power-tool-available.aspx

driving data driven unit tests with text files

ejarvi — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 02:00:00 GMT

A few weeks ago I was looking for a simple way to do data driven unit tests on VS 2005 using a plain text file with one entry per line as the data source. I waded through documentation and forum posts using every search trick I know to find a solution. Nothing jumped out at me, so here's what I pieced together:

1) Add a reference to System.Data in your unit test assembly.

2) Add the text file to the solution (eg, data.txt) then Right Click->Properties->set Copy to Output Directory = "Copy always" or "Copy if newer" -- in this example the text file consists of 10 lines of the word “hi” each on its own line. This is in honor of a 10 year old I know who says “hi hi hi hi hi” whenever things get too boring. Change one of the values to “bye” instead of “hi” and the unit test will fail.

3) Plop this code into your unit test assembly:

private TestContext m_testContext;

public TestContext TestContext

{

get { return m_testContext; }

set { m_testContext = value; }

}

[TestMethod]

[DeploymentItem("data.txt")]

[DataSource("System.Data.OleDb", "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=.;Extended Properties='text;FMT=Delimited'", "data.txt", DataAccessMethod.Sequential)]

public void SayHi()

{

//replace next line with a call to your code under test

if (("hi" != (string)TestContext.DataRow[0] ))

{

Assert.Fail("value = " + (string)TestContext.DataRow[0]);

}

Once the unit test has finished executing you can double click on the result and it will present you with an itemized breakdown of the results in a tabular format. The failure message will be included, so the more meaningful, the better.

In full disclosure, after all was said and done, I didn’t actually use this for the problem I was trying to solve. One drawback to this approach for me was the granularity of the reporting during runtime, since you don’t get the breakdown report or status summary until after the entire unit test is completed. With over 6,000 test values to feed into an already slow test function, it would have taken over 20 hours to run just one unit test. In this particular case I actually put together a code generator to turn it into 6000+ individual TestMethods and using partial classes it compiles right into the test assembly without a lot of hassle.

EWeek: "Microsoft Plays to All Developers"

ejarvi — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 01:03:00 GMT

Here's an article that catches a glimpse into what makes us tick over here:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2106952,00.asp

"We want to focus on how software development might change over the next 10 years," Kass said. "And as corny as this sounds, I think [VSTS] is a way for us to change the world. I bought into it, and I really believe this is the one company that can do it."

My title for this article (with no character limits imposed) would have probably been "Microsoft Plays to all Developers, Testers, Architects, Managers, DBA's, etc..." since for me that's what VSTS is really all about - being a customizable set of tools that bring together all the key stakeholders on the enterprise software development team in a standard way.

TFS Power Tools Video

ejarvi — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 01:46:00 GMT

"Ed Hintz, development lead on the Team Foundation Server team, gave us a demo of the newly released Team Foundation Server Power Tools v1.2 . Ed demonstrates a new tool for monitoring the status and uptime of Team Foundation Server as well as a new Process Template Editor for visually customizing work item forms, workflow, and more."

http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=285202

Fixing "Service Unavailable" After TFS Installation

ejarvi — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 22:57:00 GMT

Just in case anyone else out there hits this issue. A friend called me yesterday asking for help troubleshooting a TFS installation problem. After installing TFS and "doing everything right" he still got 503 Service Unavailable messages. I logged in and this repro'd in the TFC client and straight browser. http://localhost/reports worked but nothing else did.

Reviewing the system event log showed the problem to be that the two new accounts created for TFS were having trouble logging in at startup. In the user account manager I discovered that both were set to require a new password at first login. Since these were system accounts that had been initialized with a secure password, unchecking that box (and restarting for convenience sake) fixed the problem.

There are undoubtedly countless other causes of 503 Service Unavailable. But if you're running low on troubleshooting ideas try checking the system event log for clues. Hope that helps!

VSTS Tip: No Late Fees on Channel 9

ejarvi — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 19:55:00 GMT

FYI - just got word that VSTS has its own category on Channel 9 making it easier to browse through what's available, here are the links:

VSTS All [ Web ]
VSTS Videos [ Web | RSS ]
VSTS Screencasts [ Web | RSS ]

VSTS Tip: Pro Visual Studio 2005 Team System Application Development

ejarvi — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 22:39:00 GMT

My pre-order copy of Steve Shrimpton's "Pro Visual Studio 2005 Team System Application Development" finally arrived today - it is massive and on page 722 the author confesses "I could have made this book much longer!" It's at least an order of magnitude more detail than the manual that ships in the box, I am impressed with how much work I know must have gone into making this happen.

Chapter 10 covers Web and Performance Testing and it's coverage of the profiler is as good or better than anywhere else I've seen so far, although with my bias I probably won't be totally satisfied until someone writes a whole book exclusively on performance tuning with the profiler. I suppose you can technically search for all of this information online in the blogs and forums and documentation but if you want to save yourself the time, this is all packaged up in a walkthrough format, if you want a guided tour this is a good way to go. If you want specific questions answered I'd give this book a 65% chance of answering them, and when it doesn't answer them it can at least give you the context to make a smart sounding question on the forums so you can get an answer.

Not to get you all teary eyed but another inspiring thing for me was Steve's dedication on the front cover of the book .. I got the feeling the motivation for this book was helping people not raking in the royalties, and it sums up my own feelings about why I loved working on the product ... especially after the huge launch of Visual Studio 2005 where we were dispatched hither and yon to crowds of thousands of developers at events all over the world - "I dedicate this book to all people throughout the world, from many ethnic backgrounds, working together as a team to increase the achievement, knowledge, and wisdom of all humanity." That's what it's all about!

VSTS Tip: Pluralsight Applied VSTS Course

ejarvi — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 20:30:00 GMT

FYI - I just found out about this VSTS course being offered by PluralSight:

"4 intensive days learning how to effectively use Team Foundation Server and how Team System can affect everyone's day-to-day activities"

http://www.pluralsight.com/courses/AppliedVSTS.aspx

VSTS Tip: teamprise interview

ejarvi — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 21:25:00 GMT

"Sam interviews Martin from Teamprise, a company which has developed a pretty interesting suite of client applications that can access Visual Studio Team Foundation Server from Macintosh, UNIX or Linux clients using Eclipse. The Teamprise implementation allows development teams to use the source control features as well as work item tracking from within the Eclipse IDE"

http://port25.technet.com/archive/2006/07/21/Podcast_3A00_-Accessing-VS-Team-Foundation-Server-from-Mac_2C00_-UNIX-or-Linux-through-Eclipse.aspx

VSTS Tip: msdnwiki.microsoft.com

ejarvi — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 20:36:00 GMT

Join the party - MSDN is gettin' wiki with it:

http://msdnwiki.microsoft.com/

http://msdnwiki.microsoft.com/wikiedit/faq.htm (FAQ)

VSTS Tip: Is It Live Or Is It Virtual TechEd ?

ejarvi — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 23:41:00 GMT

To blatantly plagiarize from an internal email that has marketing written all over it:

"For the first time ever you can see and hear much of what Tech•Ed has to offer by visiting the Virtual Tech•Ed site at http://virtualteched.com. Virtual Tech•Ed's team of editors and bloggers will bring you compelling video and audio productions featuring hot topics and cool technology, plus news, breakout highlights, and more. Whether you're at Tech•Ed 2006 but can't see everything, or you want to see what you are missing, visit VirtualTechEd.com for the latest news and on-site video logs."

VSTS Tip: Team System VPC Available to MSDN Subscribers

ejarvi — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 01:40:00 GMT

For the .01% of you who don't already have Rob Caron's blog in your Outlook 2007 Beta RSS feed reader:

Team System VPC Available to MSDN Subscribers

VSTS Tip: 400plusdifferences.com

ejarvi — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 22:43:00 GMT

Proof that campfire skits are still alive and well in the internet age. I must admit the DCR one hit a little too close to home ... :)

http://www.400plusdifferences.com/index.aspx?diff=308