The TFS MVP Kerfluffle

Posted by Jeremy Miller on July 27, 2009

I just want more people to go rant in the comments on this one.  A Deleted Response to a TFS Blog Post.  It’s a perfect microcosm of why the MVP program shouldn’t be taken very seriously by the community.

I’ve never had to use TFS, so I don’t have a strong opinion.  All I can say is that the TeamCity + SVN + NUnit + Rake combination that we use was very, very easy to get up and going.

About Jeremy Miller

Jeremy is the Chief Software Architect at Dovetail Software, the coolest ISV in Austin. Jeremy began his IT career writing "Shadow IT" applications to automate his engineering documentation, then wandered into software development because it looked like more fun. Jeremy is the author of the open source StructureMap tool for Dependency Injection with .Net, StoryTeller for supercharged acceptance testing in .Net, and one of the principal developers behind FubuMVC. Jeremy's thoughts on all things software can be found at The Shade Tree Developer at http://codebetter.com/jeremymiller.
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  • http://HuddledMasses.org Joel "Jaykul" Bennett

    What does that have to do with the MVP program? Some consultant doesn’t want people promoting cheaper tools that he doesn’t understand on his blog — how is that news?

    I mean, I wouldn’t hire the guy to do an assessment or evaluation of my technology options, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a great help for people who are trying to implement TFS, right?

  • http://www.acceptedeclectic.com pete w

    If I came to the conclusion that TFS was right for me, I would hire that guy to setup and configure my environment, because its pretty clear that’s the only source control system he knows. Just like “when all you have is a hammer…”

    Agreed though, for my money, Teamcity+SVN+NUNIT/JUNIT/RSPEC+NANT = reliable team system and I can move on to more valuable things :)

  • Matt Briggs

    I don’t think its really fair to paint all MVPs with the same brush because of that post. It is more yet another reason why if someone is explaining to you why TFS is a good thing, it either means they have some ulterior motive, or they are some sort of drone churned out by the MS machine. Either way, they are not someone who deserves being paid attention to.

  • http://www.mattberther.com Matt Berther

    @jeremy: could you talk a bit about how you use Rake in your setup?

  • alwink

    He, you don’t have a strong opinion, but you do want everyone to go rant in the comments…

    BTW why do you have a grudge against the MVP program?

  • http://codebetter.com/members/jmiller/default.aspx Jeremy D. Miller

    @alwink,

    I don’t particularly have a grudge against the MVP program (I’m a C# MVP), but neither should it be taken very seriously by anybody — other than being a free MSDN license.

    And the TFS dustup was kind of fun to watch.

  • http://blog.deploymentengineering.com Christopher Painter

    I’ve done build and install automation exclusively for over 13 years now. I’ve used pretty much every tool and system out there and I have to say for a .NET shop ( particularly greenfield with no legacy investments and political fights to deal with ) TFS rocks out of the box and is very easy to extend. My honest assessment is that TFS isn’t `the best` tool in any one area ( source, build, defect tracking, collaboration ) but that taken together it’s a really good experience.

    I’ve done 4 TFS roll out’s now and I’ve seen several instances where it went very well and one instance where people just fought against it for no reason other then fear of change.

    One of those rollouts ( for a small startup ) only took 10 hours to do a kick off meeting, set up the Hyper-V server, build all of the VM’s, install sql/tfs/teambuild, setup sandbox agile and cmmi projects, drop in my canned build automation solution, create branched helloworld sample applications, set up the builds, and then give a training session on how to use work items, areas and iterations and builds.

    10 hours to establish an entire development infrastructure. That’s pretty darn good to me.

    And don’t even get me going on the MSMVP program. It’s meaningless to me as well. I don’t need a badge to prove that I know my shit to employers, coworkers, customers and my blog visitors.