Visual Studio Team Suite

Question

If taken from a developers perspective, what would my team and I gain from using Visual Studio Team System and Visual Studio Team Foundation Server?

I can see some features and the like, but what have you gained from using the two versus using VS Professional and SVN (for a weak example). If there are any good links that you know of, please feel free to post them.

Answer 1

Well, lets talk 2010... ;)

You can not compare Prof + SVN with TFS and TS - reason is you msis out a LOT. The comparisong would have to include some other technologies toget on feature parity.

IMHO good points are:

• Good source control (including stable server based storage, proxies for external subteams etc.). Not saying SVN sucks, but I dont like not having locking checkouts on times, and if you run a larger / distributed team, the proxy functionaltiy really pushes performance.
• Automatded build / Continous integration (which is where CC.NET or TeamCity would come in). Unless you dont do that, plus unit testing etc. - you simply did not mention any solution for this, and in TS it is integrated, which I take as a big plus.
• Gated checkin (check in only after build server ok's the changes - harder to break builds)
• Bug tracking / work item tracking (not the best, but again - you need another product for that). I personally think it does a mediocre job there (Axosoft OnTime looks a lot better), but - well... it is integrated ;)
• Data Dude - database change script generation and handling of database versioning. Again, this is a big problematic area otherwise - third "another piece of software needed" thing.

That is a decent start at least to show you that the comparison is a lot more complicated.

Answer 2

Team suite will allow you to manage the entire lifecycle management in a unified framework. It is very easy to bind your changes and source code to a build, work-items, create release notes, etc.