Tech-Ed 2010 Presentations

Richard Hundhausen — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 00:45:36 GMT

Thank you to everyone who attended my talks at Tech-Ed 2010 last week in New Orleans. I had a great time talking Scrum, Visual Studio 2010, and all intersections in-between.

Here are my presentations, in case you want to download them.

DPR205 - Understanding the Professional Scrum Developer Program
DEV312 - Let Build Automation in Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 Work for You

Also, I uploaded a few random photos to flickr.

Inside the Microsoft Build Engine

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 16:00:39 GMT

There has been a vacuum of really good, actionable information on MS Build and Team Foundation Build for developers. I’m pleased to report that this is no longer the case! Inside the Microsoft Build Engine, by Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi and William Bartholomew, fills the void with a book that serves well as both a learning guide and a reference tool. Here’s the product description:

"The build process when code gets assembled to see how and how well it works is a critical step in software development. Developers had few options for customizing the build process before Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008, but the Microsoft Build Engine (MSBuild) enables developers to customize each step during a build. MSBuild is extensible and uses an XML file to describe each step, allowing the build master or developer to easily change and augment how projects are built. This book offers hands-on guidance for customizing MSBuild, and provides a cookbook of examples on Web deployment, automated releases, and other essential topics. It also covers Visual Studio Team Foundation Build, the build engine in Visual Studio Team System."

If you have anything to do with automated builds using Team Foundation Server, this book is a must-have. I know this for a fact because I had the opportunity to serve as a technical reviewer for the book.

Which Edition of Visual Studio 2008 to Install on Team Foundation Build 2008?

Richard Hundhausen — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 16:58:48 GMT

I finally took the time to put together a chart showing which edition of Visual Studio needs to be installed on the Team Build server to achieve specific features. As you can see, Team Suite has you covered. As for the question of whether or not you need to purchase an additional copy of Visual Studio for this - that question has been answered on Jeff Beehler's blog as well as in the VSTS 2008 Licensing White Paper.

I might also add that Brian Randall mentioned that you can automate the validation of Architect Edition Deployment Diagrams on the Team Build server if you install that edition; but, being that he's the only guy on the planet to probably do that, I didn't think it was worth mentioning.

Team Build Target Map

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 00:57:40 GMT

Team_Build_Target_Map1.docx (22.73 KB)

I had the good fortune of reviewing the upcoming book titled Inside the Microsoft® Build Engine: Using MSBuild and Team Foundation Build. This book is an absolute must for anyone who is creating and customizing build definitions in Team Foundation Build. As part of my review process I created a map that lists the order of target invocation. I found this map very handy, so I’m posting it because I figure others will find it handy too. The map is listed below, and also contained in the attached word document. If you make any corrections or improvements to the map, please share back!

By the way, MSBuild Sidekick turned out to be very useful in building this map. The Team Foundation Build targets file is large and complex. MSBuild Sidekick's tree-view makes it much easier to navigate this beast, and the search features made it easy to traverse the target dependencies. This is a very handy tool for editing (or studying) build scripts.

This map shows the order of target execution in the Team Build targets file, %ProgramFiles%\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\TeamBuild\Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.targets. The target names in the map are color coded as follows:

Green: this is an extensibility target that can be customized in your TFSBuild.proj file
Blue: This is run as a separate MSBuild process to support parallel processing

EndToEndIteration

When a Team Build agent starts a new build, the build starts by invoking the EndToEndIteration target. This target then invokes the following chain of targets.

·         CheckSettingsForEndToEndIteration

·         InitializeBuildProperties

·         BeforeEndToEndIteration

·         BuildNumberOverrideTarget

·         InitializeEndToEndIteration

·         InitializeWorkspace

o   BeforeInitializeWorkspace

o   CoreInitializeWorkspace

o   AfterInitializeWorkspace

·         TeamBuild

o   CleanAll (CleanCompilationOutputOnly != true)

o   InitializeBuild

o   PreBuild

§ Get

·         BeforeGet

·         CoreGet (SkipGet != true)

·         AfterGet

§ Label

·         BeforeLabel

·         CoreLabel (SkipLabel != true)

·         AfterLabel

o   CleanCompilationOutput (CleanCompilationOutputOnly == true)

§ BeforeClean

§ CallClean (SkipClean != true)

·         CoreCleanCompilationOutput

o   ComputeConfigurationList

o   CleanConfiguration

§ BeforeCleanConfiguration

§ CoreCleanConfiguration

·         ComputeSolutionList

·         CleanSolution

§ AfterCleanConfiguration

§ AfterClean

o   Compile

§ BeforeCompile

§ CallCompile

·         CoreCompile

o   CompileConfiguration

§ BeforeCompileConfiguration

§ CoreCompileConfiguration

·         ComputeSolutionList

·         CompileSolution

o   BeforeCompileSolution

o   CoreCompileSolution

o   AfterCompileSolution

§ AfterCompileConfiguration

§ AfterCompile

o   PostBuild (SkipPostBuild != true)

§ GetChangesetsAndUpdateWorkItems

·         BeforeGetChangesetsAndUpdateWorkItems

·         CoreGetChangesetsAndUpdateWorkItems (SkipGetChangesetsAndUpdateWorkItems != true)

·         AfterGetChangesetsAndUpdateWorkItems

o   Test

§ BeforeTest

§ CoreTest

·         RunTest

o   TestConfiguration

§ BeforeTestConfiguration

§ CoreTestConfiguration

·         ResolveTestFilesForEndToEndIteration

§ AfterTestConfiguration

§ AfterTest

o   GenerateDocumentation

o   PackageBinaries

·         DropBuild

o   BeforeDropBuild

o   CoreDropBuild (SkipDropBuild != true)

o   AfterDropBuild

·         AfterEndToEndIteration

DesktopBuild

This is the target execution sequence when you perform a Desktop Build. For more information on configuring and using a Destop Build, see this MSDN article.

·         Compile

o   BeforeCompile

o   CallCompile

§ CoreCompile

·         CompileConfiguration

o   BeforeCompileConfiguration

o   CoreCompileConfiguration

§ ComputeSolutionList

§ CompileSolution

·         BeforeCompileSolution

·         CoreCompileSolution

·         AfterCompileSolution

o   AfterCompileConfiguration

o   AfterCompile

·         Test

o   BeforeTest

o   CoreTest

§ RunTest

·         TestConfiguration

o   BeforeTestConfiguration

o   CoreTestConfiguration

o   AfterTestConfiguration

o   AfterTest

·         GenerateDocumentation

·         PackageBinaries

DesktopRebuild

Start a build using DesktopRebuild as the initial target to perform a clean, full compilation and run tests. For more information on how to build team projects on the desktop, see this MSDN article.

·         Clean

o   BeforeClean

o   CoreClean

·         CoreCleanAll (CleanCompilationOutput != true AND SkipClean != true)

·         CallClean (CleanCompilationOutput == true AND SkipClean != true)

o   CoreCleanCompilationOutput

§ ComputeConfigurationList

§ CleanConfiguration

·         BeforeCleanConfiguration

·         CoreCleanConfiguration

o   ComputeSolutionList

o   CleanSolution

·         AfterCleanConfiguration

o   AfterClean

·         DesktopRebuild (see previous section for details)

OnBuildBreak

If an error occurs during the compile phase, normal processing is suspended and the OnBuildBreak target is invoked. This target then invokes the following sequence of targets:

·         BeforeOnBuildBreak

·         CoreOnBuildBreak

o   GetChangesetsOnBuildBreak

§ BeforeGetChangesetsOnBuildBreak

§ CoreGetChangesetsOnBuildBreak (SkipGetChangesetsAndUpdateWorkItems != true)

§ AfterGetChangesetsOnBuildBreak

o   DropBuild

§ BeforeDropBuild

§ CoreDropBuild

§ AfterDropBuild

o   CreateWorkItem

§ BeforeCreateWorkItem

§ CoreCreateWorkItem (SkipWorkItemCreation != true)

§ AfterCreateWorkItem

·         AfterOnBuildBreak

Skip Properties

These properties are used to suppress the execution of certain targets in the build sequence. A complete list of customizable Team Foundation Build properties can be found in this MSDN article.

·         SkipClean

·         SkipDropBuild

·         SkipGet

·         SkipGetChangesetsAndUpdateWorkItems

·         SkipInitializeWorkspace

·         SkipInvalidConfigurations

·         SkipLabel

·         SkipPostBuild

·         SkipWorkItemCreation

Accentient - Team Foundation Build