After a long period of testing and customizing the Team foundation Server to our needs, We can finally say that we have a great results.
First, I would like to invite all of you: use the TFS it is a great tool and it will help you being more productive.
Second, Matan1 and I thought about useful feature for the next release:
Inheritance in process templates (VSTS)
Background:
We have two different systems: StandardWorld, AmazingWorld.
We want to customize the bug work-item, for example, so each programmer\tester will not forget
writing important details.
(for example: the user's profile which caused the error.
Why? because in our system we would like to know the user's profile which produced the bug).
But Hey, it is system-based, in StandardWorld, for example, we don't have profiles at all.
How do we gonna implement this today:
Today we just create two different process templates (AmazingWorld-ProcessTemplate and
StandardWorld-ProcessTemplate) which are the same, but with different additions for each
system. For example: in AmazingWorld-ProcessTemplate we would add the special field to the
bug work-item.
The Problem:
All the known copy&paste errors, from the Software development, each minor change will reflect
on two different places, and so on.
Think about your code, we always try to prevent the copy&paste operation.
Our Solution:
Lets define inheritance between process templates.
For example: StandardWorld will use the default template (the base template), and the
AmazingWorld will use the extended template (the one with added features).
The logic should be like this:
For each new template we could choose if we want to inherit from other class/template or not.
Updated:
I opened a lady bug at microsoft:
http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=241462
Vote for it.
Conclusion:
We think that it will help us create more generic templates!
Let me know what do you think about this?
Is this a good feature for the next version?
1A few words about Matan: he took this mission with his two hands (strong and big I might say) and lead the team to a better process. If you would like to ask more questions about the TFS do not hesitate.