Professional Visual Studio 2005 Team System

Introduction

In June of 1999, Microsoft started to reevaluate how Visual Studio was being used as part of a software development process. Microsoft's Developer Division sustained the developer community at large for years, but did not adequately address all of the challenges of software development within a team environment. For example, what Microsoft tools were out there for architects before Team System? There really wasn't that much—the most notable tool is Microsoft Visio, which is used to design UML diagrams. There are also some other lesser known design tools in Visio. However, there isn't any solid twoway integration between Visio diagrams and code within Visual Studio. Another problem relates to the tools themselves. To effectively set up a software development shop, you have to purchase several third-party tools (or use open-source tools) to handle tasks such as version control and team communications. A mishmash of tools is even more difficult to integrate.

Here is a common scenario: You are compiling a list of tasks or requirements to send out to your team using products such as Microsoft Excel, Word, or Project. You then have to be able to communicate these tasks to the rest of your team and respond when they have completed the task or the status changes. To be able to achieve this, you have to do a lot of cutting and pasting. On top of that, the process is very deliberate—there is no automation or shortcuts. You also have to handle a lot of your communication by e-mail. The problem with e-mail is that your team members can lose messages; there may be a server outage that may prevent your messages from coming through, and so forth.

Resources