Selective builds using TFS with ASP.NET

Question

I am currently trying to setup our complete development process (from dev to production).

We will be using Microsoft Team Foundation Server and I was wondering if there was way to put what version of programs you want in a build.

Let's say we are 20 programmers working on the same project and we only want to deploy changes done by one or two programmers. Is there a way to do that?

I was thinking about using continuous integration to our dev / QA server and than deploy what is ready and fully tested to our production servers.

Thanks for your help!

Answer 1

we only want to deploy changes done by one or two programmers. Is there a way to do that?

This leads to a much larger discussion of your branching and merging strategy. Basic answer: suggest you have those developers develop in their own dev branch. Publish from there when ready. Keep other devs out of that branch either by convention or setup security measures.

Their branch can be merged with the other developers at some point. That could be straightforward, or a fun time for someone managing/resolving merge conflicts.

Re: the comment

Are there any other ways of managing the development cycle of an ASP.NET application? It is very important that I can deploy what I want, when I want it?

Yes, you can absolutely pick and choose which features you want in a release/branch/build. Suggest looking into creating branches for the 'streams' of development(branches), and merge into a 'main' branch from those 'dev' branches. You can have many concurrent branches merging into one branch, culminating in the mix of features you want.