Alexey Govorin (Leshka)

Customizing TFS Process Template to Match Your Process at the Second Annual DogFood Conference

agovorine@gmail.com (agovorine@gmail.com) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:48:00 +0000

On November 12th 2009, I will be presenting on TFS Process Template customization.

TFS is a very versatile tool that has a lot of features and capabilities. I think of TFS as a highly customizable/adoptable to my needs framework. Prior to using TFS we had a lot of different tools to manage our development progress; while we can still use them now, the beauty of using of TFS is that all the data is centralized and available from one tool. It does not matter if it is source code I am after or status report or the progress state of the requirement - I can find all this information in one place, using my everyday tools.

How do you know that the team is following the development process, standards, policies? TFS Process Templates helps to insure that development guidelines and processes are adhere by team members.
TFS comes with two Process Templates (MSF for CMMI Process Improvement and MSF Agile Software Development). In my opinion the two templates are there as an example and a starting for customization and should not be used as is.

I have seen a lot of organizations implementing TFS and using it only for source code management. I have heard many different reasons on why it has been done, starting with: we are just easing into using TFS; or we are not managing our development the "Microsoft Way", or we already have a good process and we do not want to break it, etc...

In my presentation I will show that it is easy to make changes to the process templates, we can actually make changes not only before the project starts, but during the active project. Its like magic going from fighting the tool to actually using it!

Eventhough DogFood conference is sponsored by the partner community, it would not have been possible without Danilo Casino, read more about the conference from Brian's blog.
This 2 day event will feature over 40 technology topics spread over 4 tracks.

Come and join us: DogFood agenda and registration.

You can track me down at the conference during the "Ask the Experts" in the Executive Briefing Room (4th floor) from 2:30 to 3:40 on 11/12/2009 8800 Lyra Dr., Suite #400, Columbus OH 43240

COALMG Recorded Session: Application Lifecycle: Security!

agovorine@gmail.com (agovorine@gmail.com) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 20:45:00 +0000

Last time COALMG had Brent Huston talking about web application security, you may find the recording of the session on COALMG site

QSI Grok Talk: PEX

agovorine@gmail.com (agovorine@gmail.com) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:12:00 +0000

Developers at Quick Solutions have a monthly meeting known as "Grok Talk". The meeting typically takes place during lunch. The goal of the meeting is to share information on the topic of choosing. The most recent Grok has been done by Mel Grubb on PEX.
Here is the recording of the session:

QSI Tech Night: Code Generation with T4 Templates

agovorine@gmail.com (agovorine@gmail.com) — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 20:19:00 +0000

Recently, Mel Grubb has presented Code Generation with T4 Templates at Quick Solution's Tech Nigh meeting. While we still finalizing the details on how to share those presentations with the community you may watch Mel's presentation from here:

Follow up questions from KY SDLC

agovorine@gmail.com (agovorine@gmail.com) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 13:18:00 +0000

After the SDLC presentation we had several questions that we were going tofollow through:

Q: How can I see all created Alerts for the selected TFS Project?
The answer is Yes and No. There is no an easy UI that will tell someone of all project alerts, but this information can be easily discovered by two methods:
Option 1: Query the underlying database (not recommended), all subscriptions are stored in
[TfsIntegration].[dbo].[tbl_subscription]. If soemone chooses this path my recomendation would be: LOOK, BUT DON'T TOUCH.
There is a reson on why there is ae extensive set of API asvaialble to us, modifying data in the table may lead into path of unpredictable problems with TFS.

Option 2: use TFS API web services to aggregate the information.
you will start by calling ReadIdentityFromSource method of the http://localhost:8080/services/v1.0/GroupSecurityService.asmx service to find out the list of all users that have access to a project, assuming that you know names of the Application Groups (like Contributors, Project Administrators, etc) then you can set factor as: AccountName, and factorValue as: {Account Group Name, ex. [DCVR]\Contributors]}

Now that you have a list of users that have access to the project, you may get each person's subscription by calling EventSubscriptions method of http://localhost:8080/services/v1.0/eventservice.asmx service.

if you are not sure on what Application Groups you have, you may find them by either looking at the "Group Memebership" option of the Team Project Setting in the Team Explorer or you can use TFS APIs:

http://localhost:8080/services/v1.0/CommonStructureService.asmx?op=ListProjectsx to get the Project URI
http://localhost:8080/services/v1.0/GroupSecurityService.asmx?op=ListApplicationGroups to get the list of the groups for the selected Project URI.

More information of the TFS API can be found at Buck Hodges blog

Q: I am having a problem with check-in 50MB file, is there a setting to increase a max size of checked in file?
There are no switches in TFS that will limit a person on the size of the check-in file. Mike and I were able to check-in 100+MB file without any problems. My recomendation will be to check IIS and Application Event logs for logged messages as a strating point to troubleshoot the issue.

An interesting fact is: if you are checking large files (>16MB) then TFS deltas mechanism that is used to figure out the difference between file versions will not be used, which means that the entire file will be checked into source control. Not a big deal unless you are working with a lot of large files and have a database disk constrain. To ensure that TFS deltas mechanism is used to store file revisions you will need to update the default value of "deltaMaxFileSize" key located in {TFS Install Folder}\Web Services\VersionControl\:

Another interesting fact: by default workitem attachments are limited to 4MB sizes. To change that value one will need to call the GetMaxAttachmentSize method of http://localhost:8080/services/v1.0/ConfigurationSettingsService.asmx service.

Q: Can recorded Web Tests be hooked to the external data source to provide input values?
Yes, web test can be easily configured to support input of the values from the external sources like: database, csv, or xml. You may find additional details from my previous post: http://govorin.blogspot.com/2009/07/data-driven-web-tests-with-vsts2008.html

Data Driven Web Tests with VSTS2008

agovorine@gmail.com (agovorine@gmail.com) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 18:45:00 +0000

Recently, I was asked if a recorded WebTest can be link to the external datasource for data feed. For example if we would like to pass different search parameters into a search page to test the logic and data of the search, we definitely do not want to have multiple tests that do the same thing. It totally make sense to have a single test that will feed different data and will aggregate/reports results back to us.

My second attempt at the webcasting runs through example on how to accomplish data bounding to the web test:

Visual Studio Team System Testers Edition has an option of recording a Web Test, once the test is created we can easily add a data source to it, by doing following steps:

1. Right Click on the web test, Select Add Data Source.
From here you will a Wizard with multiple choices:

I think that you may want to use CSV,XML types:

if you want BA or End Users to easily provide you with a test data

if the amount of data is small

you need a version history of data evolution (the file can be checked in into Source Control and deployed as part of the build process).

The Database choice is good:

large amount of data (thousand/million data points).

re-use the same data across multiple test/projects/teams/environments.

Once the data source is created, all is left is to replace hard coded values for the data from bound source.

2. Find a Post Parameter by expanding Request Form Post Parameter

3. Select Properties by Right Click on ContentPlaceHolder

4. Select created DataSource by Clicking on the drop down menu of the Value property.

5. Expand Datasource and Navigate to the needed column.

This is it, you know can run web test and feed the data from the external source.

But what if you want to add Validation and Extraction rules to your test and be able to run positive and negative tests, how do you do it with external data source?

You may take a similar approach and try to bind the value properties of the rules to data source, but you may run into a problem of setting the "Pass if Found" Boolean property.

In my opinion it would be better to convert the test to coded version and then you will have control over all aspects of the test.

6. Select Generate Code by right Clicking on the web test.

7. Make changes to the "PassIfFound" property of the rule.

Web Test Coded file from my demo can be downloaded from here

Missing Demo from SDLC KY: Branching and Merging with TFS Source Control

agovorine@gmail.com (agovorine@gmail.com) — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:18:00 +0000

This webcast is a brief demo of how one may use TFS Source Control and its rich set of features like: Branching, Merging, and Shelving to manage production and development code.

I have collapsed the 90 minute demo into 35 minute webcast.
This is my first webcast, so any feedback is appriciated.
At some point I will re-record it at lower resolution.

Columbus Give Camp on June 17th - 19th.

agovorine@gmail.com (agovorine@gmail.com) — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 15:45:00 +0000

Working with great number of people at Columbus Give Camp, check out our live feed.

KY SDLC Day 2 Summary

agovorine@gmail.com (agovorine@gmail.com) — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 04:56:00 +0000

It was a pretty full day, it is very unfortunate that Mike and I have run out of time and were not able to cover all the topics in needed details. In the upcoming days (weeks), I will a set of the recordings to capture testing and source control in greater details, meanwhile you may visit Team System Cafe for a great variety of information on VSTS/TFS.

On Day 2 we have covered following topics:

1. VSTS Architect
We talked about Physical, Logical, and Deployment diagrams. In the demo we have used VSTS as architects (infrastructure & software) and build master to generate/validate diagrams; model the application and to have generated code based on our models.

2. VSTS Database Professional, aka "DataDude"
Is probably one of the most under-used edition of VSTS, which by the way, is now became a part of the VSTS Developer Edition. As a DBA we have covered topics of Managing, Developing, and Deploying database. We reviewed schema compare/validation/refactoring/deployment, data compare, data generation with Data Generation Plans, visioning of database, and creation of database unit tests.

3. VSTS Developer
Since were short on the time we have skipped demoing some of the development tools and concentrated demos on how the developer can use Code Coverage, Code Analysis, and Code Profiling (Instrumentation and Profiling) to troubleshoot and improve the quality of created code.

4. Creating Unit Tests, Test Driven Development, and Data Driven Tests.
In this portion of the SDLC presentation we have talked about the importance of testing and various ways one may start doing it. It can be as easy as "right click" and "generate test" (as I heard at the PDC08: Even a VP Can Do It), to getting into xDD (where x is Test/Behavior/Domain/etc Driven Development). TDD is all about Red-Green-Refactor!

In this section we have also expanded on Code coverage and demonstrated that hooking the test to data source can significantly reduce amount of tests a developer needs to write, while still maintaining a reasonable code coverage.

5. TeamBuild
On all the projects that I have a privilege to be part of, we have also setup a Continuous Server (CI) to establish an environment for automated code build and verification. I try to have a CI setup and go on day one of the project. TeamBuild is an excellent tool for creating and maintaining solution builds, we have demonstrated build can be setup under 2 minutes and perform all kings of tasks including test execution, code analysis, build failure notifications. Since TeamBuild sits on top of the MSBuild one may use a variety of created MSBuild tasks to perform additional actions like: code promotion to QA/Testing environments (only if it passes all other validations), creation of website, registration of DLL, file updates. Using Community MSBuild Tasks from TIGRIS, we were able to change the keys of the web.config file to reflect the changes between development and QA database connection strings. There are many other good collections of MSBuild tasks, like MSBuild Extension Pack.

6. VSTS Tester
Since we had limited time we showed only only Web and Load Tests in details. VSTS Tester edition has a set of powerful tools to allow us to create and manage a variety of test types. One of the greater features is an ability to capture user interactions between the browser and the server on the TCP layer stack and being able to replay it back as a WebTest or convert it to the .NET code.

I will be putting an additional posting to cover Testing in greater details, to cover other type of tests like: manual and ordered.

7. First look into VSTS 2010
Mike has given us a teaser into what Microsoft will be releasing soon, VSTS 2010, TFS 2010, .NET 4.0 all of those tolls has many new and improved features. You may get Mike's presentation from here.

You may find a lot of material on 10-4 (VSTS2010 and .NET4.0) on:

Team System Cafe, site dedicated to VSTS
VSTS2010 Beta1, can be download from here
download a training kit on with a set of Hands-on Labs for VSTS2010, by the way Quick Solutions made contributions to the content.
a set of the web casts on VSTS2010 .NET4.0 on Channel9, known as 10-4

8. Advance Source Control, for the 4 people that waited patiently for it :)
We have talked about Branching and Merging strategies. We have run through a real-life example on how one may work on the production V1.0 code performing hot fixes, at the same time continue development of the V2.0 application , and how merge can be completed between application branches.

Since mostly of the people missed this demo due to time constrains, I will be putting a recording of it in a very close future.

Here is a great white paper on Branching Strategy

KY SDLC Day 1 Summary

agovorine@gmail.com (agovorine@gmail.com) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 10:12:00 +0000

On the first day we have covered the following topics (SDLC deck):

1. Application Lifecycle Management
Mike has talked about the business value of the ALM, here is a link to the Power Point deck.

2. VSTS & TFS Overview
We have covered how Microsoft addresses the need for the robust set of tools for the ALM, the PowerPoint presentation is here.

3. Team Explorer Overview (Security, Collaboration, Alerts, Source Control)

Team Foundation Administration Tool was used to show how to simplify user management in TFS.
TFS Power Tools "Alerts Editor" was used to customize alert setup, a user interface to BisSubscribe.exe.
Team System Web Access and Work Item Web Access were briefly shown as alternatives to default sharepoint site and WIWA a free (no license required) workitem creation tool.

4. Customization / Setup
We have covered some of the popular TFS Templates for Agile Development

eSCRUM, used by some teams at Microsoft (by some reason the download link is broken, I do have a copy of it somewhere and will post the download link shortly)
VSTS Scrum on Codeplex, maintained by a group of MVPs, a light version of scrum implementation. It is a great starting point for customization.
SCRUM for Team Systems from Conchango, out of box fully implemented scrum template with a great set of features.

I have used TFS Power Tools "Process Editor" to modify template during my demos.

5. Work Item Management (Tools for Managing Requirements)
Besides showing a variety of ways one may create and manage work items in TFS (Team Explorer, Excel, Project, Web Access, WIWA) I also briefly demoed: TeamLook and TeamSpec.

What Software did I use for the SDLC presentation

agovorine@gmail.com (agovorine@gmail.com) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 02:58:00 +0000

to save time and to make the demos easily reproducible I have used a trial version of Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server SP1 VPC Image, you may download from here. The image will not expire till the end of 2009, so happy exploring!

After booting into it and applying all the security patches, I have also downloaded and installed additional software and tools:
1. Team Foundation Administration Tool - to simplify permission management
2. TeamLook, from Team System Solutions - an Outlook add-on for Work Item Management (will work with TFS2005/2008 and Outlook 2003/2007)
3. TeamSpec, from Team System Solutions - a Word add-on for managing Work Items in the word (again will work with TFS 2005/2008 and Word 2003/2008)
4. Ravenflow - great tool for round trip requirements and work items management.
5. Teamprise plugin for Eclipse - java development TFS integrated development toolset
6. Sparx Enterprise Architect, UML modeling tool.
7. I do not remember if TFS Power Tools were part of the image, but in case you are missing them you may get them from here
8. Tigris MSBuild tasks - a collection of MSBuild tasks to help with TeamBuild automations

[UPDATE]
9. I forgot to include VSTS 2008 Database Edition GDR R2 setup and
10. VSTS 2008 Database Edition Power Tools, I did not use any of the features during the demos, but it has a few great improvements.

Alternatively, if you want to try some of the demos/features for the VSTS2008 and TFS2008 you may want to try to use Team System Virtual Labs, it is truly a great resource.

A Two Day Event: SDLC in a Box on July 15-16, 2009

agovorine@gmail.com (agovorine@gmail.com) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 13:36:00 +0000

WHAT:
This 2 day event will focus on application life-cycle management, we will review how one may leverage TFS and VSTS on a project, from initial conception through requirements gathering, design, development, testing, build & review processes. We will demonstrate integration with non-Microsoft development and best-of-breed partner solutions & offerings for Visual Studio 2008 Team System.

For additional information please see http://www.sdlcinabox.com/

Target Audience:
This two day sessions is targeted for Developers, Architects, Project Managers, DBAs and Business Analysts looking for ALM and researching Team Foundation Server.

Speakers:
1. Alexei Govorine:
Co-Founder of the Central Ohio ALM Group
ALM/.NET Practice Manager for Quick Solutions
2. Mike Gresley:
MS SLG Dev Tools team
3. David Baliles:
MS SLG Dev Tools team
Co-Founder of the SDLC in a Box program

WHERE:
Capitol Annex Bldg: Room 171, 700 Capital Avenue Frankfort, KY 40601

WHEN:
July 15-16, 2009 from 9-4:30 PM

Registration Link: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032418198&Culture=en-US

Draft Agenda of the event topics:
Day 1:

Introductions
SDLC in a Box: Background
Application Lifecycle Management
VSTS & TFS Overview
Customization / Setup
Team Explorer Overview (Security, Collaboration, Alerts, Source Control)
Work Item Management (Tools for Managing Requirements)
Architecture

Day 2:

Database
Development
Unit Testing & Test-Driven (TDD)
Code Promotion: Building & Deploying code
Functional Testing
Branching & Hotfix Demonstration
Reports
Q&A
(optional) Lap Around VSTS 2010

TF26204 error when importing WorkItems in TFS08 SP1

agovorine@gmail.com (agovorine@gmail.com) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 21:21:00 +0000

Recently,
I have run into a problem while importing a workitem template from one TFS project to another. The error I got was slightly misleading at first:
TF26204: The account you have entered is not recognized. You do not persmission, please contact your TFS Administrator.

After, traditional WTF (mummbling) and Googling for an error I have narrow down the problem to the rules used on the template. This MSDN article was a big clue!

The Work Item template I was importing had rules with regards to user lists.
Specifically the original Project Template had a custom security group "Testers" and the WI template has rules specific to this group, in my case it was: , the new project was created with a different template and did not contain mentioned group.

At this point I had two options:
1. Modify WI template and remove all references to the non-existent security group. Good starting point is here or here.
2. Add the missing group to the TFS Project. From VS menu click Team Team Project Settings Group Memebership and click New.

I have choosen option 2. This error may also show up if you have custom lists that use "\" in this case I recomend to replace "\" with "" via option 1.

Failed to setup TFS 2008 with SQL Server 2008 on Windows 2008

agovorine@gmail.com (agovorine@gmail.com) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 04:23:00 +0000

Finally got around to installing a brand spanky new TFS 2008 + SQL 2008 + Win2008 and out of gate run into a problem:

"The System Health Check has detected a problem that will cause Setup to fail. "
Description A compatible version of SQL Server is not installed.

So, I go over the guide and SQL install to make sure that I did install supported version for TFS08: SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition or Standard Edition and of course everything looks good.

On my second pass through the guide and find a small gotcha that I missed in the Prerequisite Installation: Team Foundation Server with a data-tier server that is running SQL Server 2008, you must integrate this service pack with files from the installation DVD for Team Foundation Server.

So to resolve the problem, one must follow instructions from the install guide: How to:

Integrate the Installation of Team Foundation Server and Service Pack 1.

bottom line: pay attention to the TFS Install Guide! ... and you may save a few hours of WTF is going on.

COALMG cross 30

agovorine@gmail.com (agovorine@gmail.com) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 03:59:00 +0000

Dan Rigsby did a great job on presenting Agile Project Management with Scrum and we have a record attendance of 31 people out 56 members.

Looking forward to our next meeting in January, hopefully we will be able to pull it off before the Codemash

Set a Guinness World Record with downloading FF3

agovorine@gmail.com (agovorine@gmail.com) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:20:00 +0000

Central Ohio ALM Group meeting

agovorine@gmail.com (agovorine@gmail.com) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 20:48:00 +0000

First of all I would like to aplogize to everyone who signed up for the email notifications for the ALM User Group. That list was mis-placed and I was not able to add people.
so we will try it one more time with list sign up, or you can subscribe to our blog or sign through codezone.

An now i am proudly announce that we have our first meeting on 4/29/08 at 5:30 pm.
See more details at the site.

Pictures from Detroit VS2008 Launch Event & Geek Dinner

agovorine@gmail.com (agovorine@gmail.com) — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 02:11:00 +0000

http://www.flickr.com/photos/69157670@N00/sets/72157604167260604/

How does an TFS geek pack?

agovorine@gmail.com (agovorine@gmail.com) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:30:00 +0000

Since I have been challenge to respond by my Boss, known in the company as a QUITTER to the moving, here is how I see moving and packing from the TFS point of view:

First of all the shipping boxes would be known as a “Changesets” that may contain many different items. As each item is packed it will get a unique version id. As I move item around I would create new boxes to hold a newly moved item. Interestingly I may actually be able to “clone the item”, since the same item will be part of the different boxes. I may require a Packing Review before any of the packing is committed and the box filled. Once the box is full of the continents an automatic shipping process will kick off to verify that all my packing is done according the shipping standards and that my packing does not break other people packing, the shipping company and all other parties that subscribe to Alerts will be notified of the filled boxes. Not only one shall be able to see the contents and status of the box, but also all the requirements that prompted the filling of the box and how many times it has been re-packed due to the changing shipping/moving rules.

FRAG! I have checked in the code in TFS05 I did not mean. What do I do now?

agovorine@gmail.com (agovorine@gmail.com) — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 01:19:00 +0000

Hypothetically speaking...

Lets assume that one of my "friends" made a big mistake and have checked in the code into TFS, and broke the build, and screw up the code that was frozen & suppose to be ready to go to the production!

So, what can the "friend" do at this point, considering that once the code is checked in into the TFS source control it does become part of the permanent record.

Well the "friend" has found that the easiest thing to do, besides blaming the PM is to do following:

1. Find the Changeset that was preceding the check-in, one can do it by right clicking on the solution/project/file(s) (I think solution or project would be preferred to ensure that all changes will be rolled back) and selecting "Get Specific Version"; from the Type dropdown select "Changeset" and using the Changeset dialog to display all change for the day or person.

2. Once the code for the selected Changeset is loaded, you still have nothing to check-in, so trigger the checking process, select solution/project/file(s) and select "Check Out for Edit".

3. Now one should be able to check-in the back into the source control by selecting "Checkin Pending Changes".

4. Here is where the fun comes, during the check-in process "Conflict" dialog will popup, one should select the file(s) and click on "Resolve" choice and select "Discard Server Changes".

5. Now that all conflicts has been resolved, repeat step 3.

Alternatively, one may download Team Foundation PowerToys (TFPT.exe) and use one of the nifty commands: tfpt rollback /changeset:###; if there are any conflicts detected user is presented with a "Merge" dialog.

Mysterious ### signs during Work Items export to Excel

agovorine@gmail.com (agovorine@gmail.com) — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 01:34:00 +0000

Several of my co-workers have run into the problem of exporting work items into the Excel 2007. The problem was/is during the export of HTML type fields (like description) in some cases they have gotten #### instead of actual words.

There is a forms post that have one of the permanent solutions listed, but I found a workaround to the problem or at least temporary solution by formatting the cell/column.

option 1:

I have selected "Format Cells" -> Number -> Custom -> General -> OK

and the final result is:

option 2:

alternative approach, if one knows how to use new Excel ribbon menus would be selecting cell/column and: Home ->Style -> Normal to reset the style and to re-enable wrapping: Alignment -> Wrap Text

So what is the moral of the post? Lets stop blaming TFS and start learning on how to use Excel :)

First Impressions of Tech Ed 2007: Process + Quality + Agility = Success

agovorine@gmail.com (agovorine@gmail.com) — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 18:32:00 +0000

Key note presentation by Bob Mugila was pretty entertaining, "Back to the Future" skit was great. I like the message presented by Bob, he had mention that IT is a big pendulum that swings from what is the important at this time, and three key pilars of it are: process, quality, and agility.
From my working experience, I can totally see it. When I started to work at one of my old companies it was all about process, it was driven into my head "RUP this and RUP that", we need to have a process in place on how to take a lunch prior to taking it. Shortly after I have started to dream about the process in my sleep, the company took a turn into a new direction, that can be summarise as: "we do not care how you do it, but it must be done with 'high' quality and bug free!"

What I liked about keynote presentation is that for us to succeed, we need to do combination of all three. The idea that if you have a process in place, we can improve the quality of work (simply by doing what we do and examining the history) and of course if the process is flexible we can achieve agility without sacrificing the first two. It totally make sense, that combination of 3 is what will make any company successful. Interesting observation that at my current company we are taking the position that: process, quality, and agility is truly a single driving force/foundation to the success.

Test Driven Development & Visual Studio Team System

agovorine@gmail.com (agovorine@gmail.com) — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 01:34:00 +0000

Recently, I was given an opportunity to give a presentation on TDD and how one may use VS2005 to accomplish this task. During the presentation I have used a standard Microsoft presentation on TDD and VSTS.
During my presentation I showed several examples on how to author: unit test, manual tests, load tests, web tests, database unit tests (stored procedures), and ordered tests. We have looked closer at: Test Manager, Code Coverage, Code Analysis and how these functionality integrates with TFS. The sample solution containing all the code can be found here.

My final thoughts on testing in VSTS:
1. Visual Studio Team System makes testing easy, great auto-generation tools allow one to generate all the plumbing without any hassle; it also provides a starting point for learning how to create tests.
2. With an exception on Windows Forms UI tests VSTS allows to generate tests that will cover all the aspects of the development and testing.
3. 100% Code Coverage does not mean that the application is bullet prove, it should be used in conjunction with Code Analysis to identify if we are comfortable the number of tests.
4. all written tests should be used in regression testing, once we start to modify existing code.
5. We have "white tests" written usually by developers that deal implementation and technology details; and "black tests" written by testers (QC/QA) that deal functional requirements of the application.

An interesting thought: From the tester's point of view we need to create a "time line". For example users does something in the system, system does something in response and based on the those results user does something else. For example user creates a task, task's work flow/state triggers additional email notifications that may provide user with additional information.

So what is the problem? The problem is that we are violating several rules: Unit Test must be simple and cover small portions of the functionality and all Unit Tests must be independent of each other. My current solution for this problem:
1. use multiple asserts in the test and
2. group relevant tests in Ordered Test.

Any thoughts on it?

ORM:1, Hand Coding:0

agovorine@gmail.com (agovorine@gmail.com) — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 19:06:00 +0000

By definition I am lazy, I love using tools to reduce my workload. Object Relational Mapping (ORM) is one of those tools that I can not live without.

Several projects ago we decided that it would be better if we generate at least 85% of persistence layer automatically, but still would have control of how and when do we use ORM. NHibernate was our choice of the ORM (at time it was beta 0.8).

So why does ORM rule? Well, I would like to share a great story on how we were able to leverage NHibernate. On one of my current projects we are using NHibernate (1.03 beta) to generate the persistence layer for the use with Oracle 10G R2.
As we were reviewing and finalizing the requirements for purchasing production hardware and licenses, the client’s newly hired CIO, asked us: “why do we need to have both Oracle and SQL Server?” Of course we answered that: “we are using Oracle because it is your preferred choice of database to persist application data. SQL Server is a requirement for the BizTalk 2006, which we are using as a middleware server.”
The next question was: “What will it take to switch to SQL Server completely?” I should mention this conversation took place half way through our development effort. Our response was: “since we are using ORM to abstract the database from the application, it should only take 54 hours.”
Here is a list of tasks we had to do:
1. SQL Server Setup (Total Effort: 4 hours)
2. Database Conversion (Total Effort: 24 hours)
a) re-create 135+ tables from the Database Definition Language (DDL) scripts;
b) make unit conversion updates like: Change VARCHAR2 to VARCHAR, CLOB to VARCHAR(MAX), NUMBER to BIGINT, NUMBER (1) to BIT/BOOLEAN
c) update defaults, identities
d) update naming conventions
e) update DDL Script that generates triggers
f) update 5 stored procedures and functions
3. Code Updates (Total Effort: 10 hours)
a) Update the NHibernate XML Mapping files (82+)
b) Update the method that calls stored procedures
4. Regression Testing (Total Effort: 16 hours)

As soon as we got the green light from the CIO to go ahead and make the conversion, our DBA and Lead Developer spent one week-end making the conversion. It surprised me that our actual implementation time was 55 hours, and most of that was spent in data conversion (32 hours).

So on the following Monday, one of developers had a shocking experience. In the morning he was working on one of his features that required saving. Typically, he would open Toad to view the table he was saving to, in order to verify the results. According to him, he was getting pretty mad, because a simple save feature started to look like a nightmare. He would type the values on the form, click save, get no errors, go look for the results in Toad and see no changes in the table, sol he tries to reload the form/restart application/visual studio/computer and see that typed values are loading back, while still not showing in the database. How can you troubleshoot a problem like that?
Luckily, we have "Daily Stand Up Meetings," at which everyone gives updates on items they are currently working and have completed. So as the news of the database switch were announced, you could clearly hear swearing from the developer. Mel, feel free to add to the story.

In the end:
- listening to the boss on why we should be using ORM is 0.0001 man hours,
- choosing an ORM is 40 man hours,
- crash learning NHibernate is 80 man hours,
- getting comfortable with NHibernate is 160 man hours,
- switching database during the development without developers noticing is PRICELESS!

Josh and Brian get Codemash style haircuts!

agovorine@gmail.com (agovorine@gmail.com) — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 02:27:00 +0000

At our first Codemash convention, Josh Holmes made a bold statement: that if by the end of the conference we add 500 blog entries on the topic of the CODEMASH, then he will shave his head.
Brian Prince up the ante to 600 entries for his hair removal.

Josh and Brian on day one of the Codemash:

and this is them at the closing note of the Codemash

In case you have missed the hair cutting process or really want it to see it again, based on the people's demand, I bring you ... What 600 blog entries can achieve!