TFS Branching Guide 2.0 out on CodePlex

  • Article

The VSTS Rangers released the 2nd major release of the TFS Branching Guide on CodePlex.

Choosing a branching strategy is one of the most important aspects of TFS deployment. The right strategy can lead to optimized team cooperation, increased productivity, and a successful TFS adoption. On the other had, a bad branching strategy can cause frustration, damage products, and derail TFS adoption in an organization.

The group that produced the first version of the TFS Branching Strategy received a lot of feedback and change requests from the community. The major feedback was that people wanted a more practical approach to branching compared to theoretical. Can you blame them? Branching itself is not a new concept, but for TFS it was, so you have to start out with theoretical. But now that we're in our second release and have thousands of TFS boxes deployed within Microsoft and with customers, it makes sense that we've come up with a more practical approach.

The second release of the Branching Guide includes the following:

  • TFS Branching Guide - Main 2.0
    • This is the main article which briefly explains branching concepts and introduces 3 levels of the most common branching scenario
  • TFS Branching Guide - Scenarios 2.0
    • A collection of less common branching scenarios
  • TFS Branching Guide - Q&A 2.0
    • A set of most frequently asked questions with answers
  • TFS Branching Guide - Drawings 2.0
    • A set of branching drawings in different formats including a large branching poster
  • TFS Branching Guide - Labs 2.0
    • A couple of examples for hands on labs with step by step instruction for practicing the branching scenarios

FWIW: the VSTS Rangers are made up of Microsoft employees and VSTS MVPs.

Excelsior!

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