Do you use any of the features in the various Visual Studio 2008 Team editions?

Question

We're contemplating Visual Studio licensing and need to decide whether licenses for Architecture/Database/Test editions are necessary. Does anyone have enough experience with these tools to say whether they are useful? I'd love some specific examples.

I'll also accept links to non Microsoft sites that provide some sort of overview of the various editions.

Edit: To clarify, most of us have Development edition licenses already, the question is just whether any of the other editions are compelling enough to get Team Suite licenses or Arch/DB/Test licenses for some individuals.

Answer 1

I'm using the Developers edition; I can't speak about the others except in one important point.

Back in VSTS 2005, the only way to do continuous integration in Team Foundation Server was to write a test list. The only way to write a test list was to have VSTS for Testers, write the XML by hand, or purchase an addin that replaced that functionality. We ended up buying Test Manager from Ekobit for about 100 bux, which worked nicely (thanks, guys!).

Now, VSTS 2008 for Developers comes with the capability to create test lists. So, from a developer perspective, VSTS for Developers has everything we need. I can create databases and do some limited versioning on them (via the create and alter scripts in a Database project), create tests (unit etal), do some architecture work (code diagrams), etc.

Again, I haven't used Architects, Database or Test versions, so I can't tell you why you might need them; I can only tell you that the Developers edition allows me to do everything I have to do, if not in the slickest or most efficient manner.

Answer 2

The database edition proved invaluable to us when getting our 2 databases with 200+ tables under source control and including the databases in the continuous integration builds. This edition also include data and schema compare and lots other features that really changed the way we handled our databases

Answer 3

The best things that I like about the upgraded versions of VS are:

Debugging window for access to all breakpoints in the solution. Very handy to turn off the ones you forgot about before they get hit.

Processes Window for list of all processes attached to VS.

Remote Debugging of other computers.

SQL Debugging.

There are a lot of other ones, but I think the best thing I can do is point you to this page that lists all of the differences between the versions.

Answer 4

Personally the only really compelling reason to use Team System is when using Team Foundation Server (CAL is included). The other most useful features are:

• Unit testing - but it's not much different from using NUnit or similar with VS Pro. Even Microsofts P&P team provide both NUnit and Microsoft versions of their unit tests.

• Code Analysis, available as standalone FxCop.

My recommendation would be:

• If you can negotiate a good deal for volume licensing, the Team Edition may not be much more expensive so go for it.

• If you're using TFS, get the Team Edition.

• Otherwise consider using the Pro edition + FxCop + NUnit.