Together with George from Microsoft Austria I am working on a demo for Visual Studio Team System. The Demo has been originally prepared by Eric Lee (here durinig a VSTS presentation…) from Microsoft … and … it rocks like hell. Thanks to Eric Lee who has really created superb instructions for setting up and testing the whole thing…
But - through all enthusiasm I have for these bits (I mean they are in a very early state and therefore somewhat slow…) - I think that the environment’s complexity will change the developer’s day-to-day business a “little” bit:-) it changes the focus on what are our tasks and how we are completing these tasks. The complexity of the whole system even leads to the fact that we actually have to change our focus for really using it effectively (…it’s not enough anymore drawing sketchy diagrams on a white-board and then start coding … what leads to a gap between the real code and the things on the white-board anyway - and that’s what we should try to avoid and where VSTS is definitely a large step forward … even if I don’t think about the long-term future with Software Factories).
So … the things are really cool but we’ll have to learn lot’s of new things and how-to use these powerful tools effectively (that’s what makes our business that interesting:-)). Great new challenges…