Visual Studio integration

[Maritza Mendez]

On Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 1:22 AM, Ian Clatworthy <
ian.clatworthy at canonical.com> wrote:

> I've spent a few hours today learning Visual Studio from a hard-core
> Windows developer and getting my head around VSS and Team Foundation
> Server. I could say a lot but I'll keep it short and polite - ho hum.
>

You are a diplomat, sir!  :)

Good grief!  By VSS please tell me you do not mean Visual Source Safe.
Please do not use that as a model!

<snip>


> Are there many VS studio users in the Bazaar community? If so, what are
> the important things you're looking for in VS integration? Functionality
> and design wise, is there a "gold standard" source control integration
> offering (VisualSVN say?) that we ought to meet and exceed?
>
> Ian C.


I don't know if there are many.  But VS is the only IDE in use in my
workplace, and I want to make Bazaar our vcs.
So let me share this: Integration of VCS with VS may sometimes be over
rated.  Such sacrilege!

Let me explain.  First, I am not suggesting that there is anything
inherently wrong with wanting integration.  I happen to prefer keeping vcs
cleanly separated from my other tools.  That is my personal bias and not a
reason for sounding caution.  The reason I am cautious is that we have
expereinced a number of problems with attempts to integrate various
commercial vcs systems with Visual Studio (and Developer Studio back in the
dark ages).  The basic problem seems to lie in the way version control is
integrated into VS Solution and Project files.  We find that if anyone on a
project team is using the integration, then everyone else on the project is
forced to either (1) also integrate the same vcs or (2) put up with litany
of obnoxious warnings every time they pull updates from the repository.
These warnings are generated by VS, not the vcs.  Disconnecting a project
from source control isn't really a good solution, because it changes the
project files.  So you end up with pointless competing and confusing
revisions to the project files under source control.  This all or nothing
"conform or suffer" approach does not work for us.  So we simply choose as a
team not to integrate vcs into VS.

There may be technical solutions we have not found.  And I am not
discouraging anyone from integrating vcs with VS.  In fact an integration
which did not suffer from the problem I described would be fantastic.  I do
not recall the name Microsoft gives to it's generic vcs backend for VS.
It's a mind bender for sure.  All I'm saying is that anyone headed down this
path should be prepared fro some bumpy steps.

The last suggestion I want to make now is that some small shops (including
some of our business partners) do not use Team Foundation Server.  They just
use VS Professional because it meets their needs.  Hopefully a Bazaar
Explorer solution will be available to them as well.

-M
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