What do you think?
Rate this book
Professional Team Foundation Server 2013
Team Foundation Server is now for everyone!
Team Foundation Server is an integral part of Microsoft's Application Lifecycle Management suite for managing and delivering software projects. The 2013 update has opened up TFS for everyone by expanding capabilities to support iOS, MacOS, Android, and Java development. Professional Team Foundation Server 2013 covers the latest updates for Agile Project Management, Test-Case Management, Release Management, and shows new users the TFS workflow for managing and delivering products. The authors leverage their positions as MVP Microsoft insiders to guide you step-by-step through all things TFS, as well as help prepare you for the Team Foundation Server Certification Exam.
* Provides a broad overview of Team Foundation Server for developers, software project managers, testers, business analysts, and others wanting to learn how to use TFS
* Gives TFS administrators the tools they need to efficiently monitor and manage the TFS environment
* Covers core TFS functions including project management, work item tracking, version control, test case management, build automation, reporting
* Explains extensibility options and how to write extensions for TFS
* Helps certification candidates prepare for the Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2013 certification exam
Professional Team Foundation Server 2013 is the ultimate guide to mastering this invaluable developer's tool.
Team Foundation Server is an integral part of Microsoft's Application Lifecycle Management suite for managing and delivering software projects. The 2013 update has opened up TFS for everyone by expanding capabilities to support iOS, MacOS, Android, and Java development. Professional Team Foundation Server 2013 covers the latest updates for Agile Project Management, Test-Case Management, Release Management, and shows new users the TFS workflow for managing and delivering products. The authors leverage their positions as MVP Microsoft insiders to guide you step-by-step through all things TFS, as well as help prepare you for the Team Foundation Server Certification Exam.
* Provides a broad overview of Team Foundation Server for developers, software project managers, testers, business analysts, and others wanting to learn how to use TFS
* Gives TFS administrators the tools they need to efficiently monitor and manage the TFS environment
* Covers core TFS functions including project management, work item tracking, version control, test case management, build automation, reporting
* Explains extensibility options and how to write extensions for TFS
* Helps certification candidates prepare for the Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2013 certification exam
Professional Team Foundation Server 2013 is the ultimate guide to mastering this invaluable developer's tool.
912 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2014
5 people are currently reading
15 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
September 4, 2014
Disclaimer: I received a free review copy of this book from the authors.
Over the years Team Foundation Server has kept expanding, it's a wonder that this book isn't shipped in a box and that it doesn't have 6 volumes to cover all the topics. Which brings me to the primary reason I've chosen not to award it 5 stars, but 4. The book tries to cover every bit of Team Foundation Server and some bits of Visual Studio and as such can't cover all of the area's with the care and depth they deserve. Because of that a number of chapters left me puzzled or not satisfied. My book case has a bunch of other books that cover these individual topics in much more depth, plus the book links to a lot of external resources, blog posts, magazine articles and MSDN docs.These at least help you find all the important items that are available out there.
Any reader, no matter how basic or advanced will find a couple of gems somewhere in this 900 page tome. It's a very valuable reference guide to using and administering Team Foundation Server. But it won't tell you everything you'll need to know to be an instant guru.
Let's go through the chapters...
The book takes you all the way from explaining the components of TFS, picking an installation type, sizing your hardware and getting TFS installed and finally connecting your client (Visual Studio or Eclipse) to it. If you're a long term user of TFS, you can probably skip these sections.
Then it dives into Source control and, new in this version, has a couple of dedicated sections on Git. While thorough in explaining many concepts, and offering a lot of options, I felt that it could have been very helpful to provide beginners with some sort of cook book to guide them through the most important decisions. A lot of space is taken up by all the screenshots that take you through the steps, which are very helpful to a new user, but as advanced user I was hoping some of that space would be used for some pro tips and tricks to make life easier. Luckily there are plenty of links to external resources, such as the ALM Rangers Version Control Guides. The section on working with non-visual studio team members is very helpful for team in that situation.
Next is a short section on Work Item Tracking and Process templates, probably a topic that could fill a 500 page book in itself. Concepts like custom controls are introduced, but not really explained. Especially the fact that custom controls are specific to Web Access, Visual Studio Version and Eclipse, would be an important thing to include.The book doesn't really cover the proper use of the different process templates that ship out of the box, you'll need to find that information elsewhere.
Then a couple of really short topics on teams, reporting, and project server fly by. Good to know that it's there, but one needs to dive deeper elsewhere to really learn how these items work.
By now we're in chapter 17 and dive into a solid section on Team Build and Release Management.Covering all the main concepts of Team Build and a short overview on MsBuild. For more details on this topic I can really recommend the book Inside the Inside the Microsoft® Build Engine: Using MSBuild and Team Foundation Build. The sections on Release Manager explain how to setup the Release Management Server and very quickly explain the different tasks and workflow actions that ship with the product. Enough to give you an global understanding, but by far not enough to allow you to build a release workflow for a reasonably complex project.
Then we dive into a whole bunch of Administration topics, from scaling and recovering your TFS server to monitoring, upgrades and finally customizing your server. In this section you'll also find a few pages on Microsoft Test Manager and a lot on Lab Management. The book ends with a very short chapter that gives you a couple of pointers to extending Team Foundation server.
As you can see, the book covers all the nooks and crannies of TFS using almost 900 pages and it weighs a ton, but after reading it cover to cover you'll probably be left with a lot of question that you'll need to research in other books and in the online resources.
Over the years Team Foundation Server has kept expanding, it's a wonder that this book isn't shipped in a box and that it doesn't have 6 volumes to cover all the topics. Which brings me to the primary reason I've chosen not to award it 5 stars, but 4. The book tries to cover every bit of Team Foundation Server and some bits of Visual Studio and as such can't cover all of the area's with the care and depth they deserve. Because of that a number of chapters left me puzzled or not satisfied. My book case has a bunch of other books that cover these individual topics in much more depth, plus the book links to a lot of external resources, blog posts, magazine articles and MSDN docs.These at least help you find all the important items that are available out there.
Any reader, no matter how basic or advanced will find a couple of gems somewhere in this 900 page tome. It's a very valuable reference guide to using and administering Team Foundation Server. But it won't tell you everything you'll need to know to be an instant guru.
Let's go through the chapters...
The book takes you all the way from explaining the components of TFS, picking an installation type, sizing your hardware and getting TFS installed and finally connecting your client (Visual Studio or Eclipse) to it. If you're a long term user of TFS, you can probably skip these sections.
Then it dives into Source control and, new in this version, has a couple of dedicated sections on Git. While thorough in explaining many concepts, and offering a lot of options, I felt that it could have been very helpful to provide beginners with some sort of cook book to guide them through the most important decisions. A lot of space is taken up by all the screenshots that take you through the steps, which are very helpful to a new user, but as advanced user I was hoping some of that space would be used for some pro tips and tricks to make life easier. Luckily there are plenty of links to external resources, such as the ALM Rangers Version Control Guides. The section on working with non-visual studio team members is very helpful for team in that situation.
Next is a short section on Work Item Tracking and Process templates, probably a topic that could fill a 500 page book in itself. Concepts like custom controls are introduced, but not really explained. Especially the fact that custom controls are specific to Web Access, Visual Studio Version and Eclipse, would be an important thing to include.The book doesn't really cover the proper use of the different process templates that ship out of the box, you'll need to find that information elsewhere.
Then a couple of really short topics on teams, reporting, and project server fly by. Good to know that it's there, but one needs to dive deeper elsewhere to really learn how these items work.
By now we're in chapter 17 and dive into a solid section on Team Build and Release Management.Covering all the main concepts of Team Build and a short overview on MsBuild. For more details on this topic I can really recommend the book Inside the Inside the Microsoft® Build Engine: Using MSBuild and Team Foundation Build. The sections on Release Manager explain how to setup the Release Management Server and very quickly explain the different tasks and workflow actions that ship with the product. Enough to give you an global understanding, but by far not enough to allow you to build a release workflow for a reasonably complex project.
Then we dive into a whole bunch of Administration topics, from scaling and recovering your TFS server to monitoring, upgrades and finally customizing your server. In this section you'll also find a few pages on Microsoft Test Manager and a lot on Lab Management. The book ends with a very short chapter that gives you a couple of pointers to extending Team Foundation server.
As you can see, the book covers all the nooks and crannies of TFS using almost 900 pages and it weighs a ton, but after reading it cover to cover you'll probably be left with a lot of question that you'll need to research in other books and in the online resources.
Displaying 1 of 1 review