November 29 meeting of the Southern California Visual Studio Team System Users Group
This month we are holding our meeting a week later than usual because of the Thanksgiving holiday. Please join us for the next meeting of SoCal Team System on November 29. We’ll be meeting in Newport Beach at Outsource Technical 3700 Campus Drive, Suite 100. Pizza and networking starts at 6:30 pm and the meeting starts at 7:00. Meeting cost is $5 to help us cover the cost of food and beverages. Please RSVP to mikev@mvasoftware.com if you plan to attend.
Branching and Merging with TFS
This session will discuss branching and merging with Team Foundation Server and Visual Studio ALM 2010. We’ll begin with a quick overview of the TFS source control system, then explore several strategies for managing project source control. With even moderately complex projects it is far too easy to create a tangled ball of confusion by branching without a clear strategy. We’ll cover some basic branching structures that can be applied to most of the common scenarios to help untangle you.
Mike Vincent is a solutions architect and agile coach based in Orange County, California. He supports clients with application lifecycle management, Scrum coaching, and software architecture focusing on Microsoft .NET technology. He has been in the software business for over 24 years in addition to engineering and marketing management positions. Mike was previously Vice President and Treasurer of INETA Noram. He founded and leads SoCal .Net Architecture, SoCal Team System, helps run OC .NET, and is a frequent presenter at user groups, regional events, conferences, and code camps. He is a Professional Scrum Developer Trainer and Visual Studio Application Lifecycle Management MVP.
The more I work with larger teams the more important Visual Studio Team Foundation Server has become and business managers with their teams of analysts. architects, QA, support folks that completely did not want to even start to embrace Agile have begun doing so in a natural way (through tooth and nail) and can begin to see the light of Areas > Scenarios > Business Requirements > Features > Action Items > Unit Testing > Code Coverage > Time Estimation and deployment through Team Foundation Server and SharePoint 2010. I think the next big wave will hit when they start and use Project Server as well. But for anyone involved in a large team effort with multiple work streams, you will need to learn how to Branch, Merge, Shelve, and Check-in your code while automating everywhere possible… This looks to be a killer session and I wish I could join you guys but I will be on site with EY in Cleveland living/loving the dream of SharePoint teams working with TFS along with mornings filled with merging and java…. 
-Ivan