Team Foundation Server is Version Control

This is a part of the blog posts surrounding the misconceptions that surround TFS. For the first post see TFS is expensive.

Team Foundation is Version Control…

There are a lot of debates raging (and have been for a long time) about how inferior TFS is when it comes to version control. Obviously the favourite comparison has always been between TFS and SVN, but these days the comparison is also shifting to the DVCS style of version control systems.

TFS version control (IMO) has always done what was needed. There are a lot of nit-pickers who look at the specific functionality that TFS does not support, but once again – I have used SVN and TFS and found that a lot of these features were really just “nice to haves”, and in most cases TFS did have a work around in one form or another.

The main thing that I feel is not addressed when people make these comparisons is the fact that TFS “IS NOT” version control. Version control is merely a feature, one of the components that make up TFS.
TFS is an ALM suite. It covers a much broader spectrum than just version control.

There are a lot of misconceptions around ALM as well. In fact, one of my large corporate clients was very keen to check the “we do ALM” checkbox after they started using SVN. Using version control does not mean you are addressing the full ALM!

So that said, one of the things that really excites me about TFS is the rate at which it is evolving. The “problem areas” are being addresses as the product matures. I’m sure you would have heard of TFS 11 & VS 11 by now.

Just looking at the changes that Brian Harry and his teams are making to TFS version control, it is going to be yet another game changing release:

• Off line or SVN style workspaces
• At last a new merge experience (I can finally stop using TortoiseSVN’s merge tool now )
• And looking at what is in store from the Team Explorer experience, it has to get you exited…

I’m off to get my hands dirty with the TFS & VS 11 developer previews…