What advantages does TFS 2010 have over Axosoft OnTime?

Question

I am currently creating a business case for rolling out TFS 2010 as our source control and bug/release management tool.

We currently use OnTime for our bug tracking software and subversion for our SCM.

I was wondering what advantages TFS 2010 has over OnTime?

I have done some thinking so far and would love to hear responses:

• TFS 2010 allows linking changesets->work items->builds
• TFS 2010 provides greater customisation of workflow than OnTime
• TFS 2010 is integrated into the Visual Studio IDE - This requires less apps to be open and less window flicking

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

TFS is one of the least intuitive Version Control systems I have ever had the misfortune to have to use. It may have numerous "bullet point" advantages over OnTime (and other comparable systems), in terms of raw feature-lists and capabilities, but the key factor is whether it can fit in with your working processes.

My experience with TFS is that you will be required to adapt to the TFS way of working, because adapting TFS to your way of working will be impossible or too difficult to justify.

We recently reviewed a number of possible alternatives to replace a system comprising SVN and a manual bug-tracking system (Excel spreadsheets). On-Time was evaluated but deemed too expensive and complex.

In the end we opted to continue using SVN, but drastically revised (simplified) our repository structures and chose to combine SVN with the FogBugz issue tracking system. The integration between these two systems was fairly rudimentary "out-of-the-box", but required only a little effort on our part to achieve the much closer level of integration we desired. Certainly far LESS effort than my previous experience of a TFS roll-out involved.

Our SVN/FogBugz system is also now integrated with a FinalBuilder build automation suite.

The result is a system that not only fits our working practices perfectly (since we devised the means by which the systems would integrate to achieve that) but which is also infinitely adaptable as our working practices evolve.

Answer 2

I think that it really depends on the size of your team(s), and what you want out of source control.

I used bugzilla in combination with Perforce for a couple of years and found that both were really very good at their own individual things while working in a very small team (2-3 people), but the suffered from a lack of integration between them and from some little idiosyncrasies that took time to get used to.

I recently moved to a new job where TFS is used extensively. There are 4 main teams in this company with 10-12 developers in each, split into further project teams below that level, and it is in this kind of environment that TFS really shines imo. It's biggest advantages in my view are:

1) The integration with Visual Studio - it's not just a case of having less windows open, but it really does speed things up and make your life easier. Things like VS automatically checking out files for you as you work (no issues with accidental checkouts due to lockless editing), being able to synronise local + TFs builds, being able to quickly compare the local version against previous ones..yes you can get 3rd party plugins to integrate but none to this level and with the same stability.

2) The communication features - simple things like integraton with Live Messenger (provided you configure TFS correctly) are great for large teams. We use WLM to communicate accross the office and for collaboration as its just quicker than walking over to someone else every time you need to ask a quick question.

3) Linking builds/changelists to tasks - Yes other SCMs do this but again it's just done in a very nice, integrated fashion..I guess it's nothing special to TFS but personally I like how it tracks this.

4) Ease of merging/lockless editing. I've had experience with some other merge tools and the TFS one works nicely enough, making merging after concurrent editing pretty simple. It's very similar to perforce in this respect, but also with a usually pretty effective auto-merge tool which I use for tiny edits that I know cannot cause any potential issues with edits other developers are working on.

5) Auto building/build management. Working with a couple of large solutions containing 20-30 projects that depend on each other, this is a godsend. We have it set to queue up a build every 20 minutes IF something has changed, and when one has happened its listed in the history log..so easy to see when you need to update your local libraries.

I don't have any experience with configuring it other than build management, but I have heard that this is the worst part of TFS..that its a bit of a pain to get everything running correctly.

So, translating that to a business case..I'd say that if you are a Microsoft software house with large/multiple teams, then the time savings and productivity improvements that you will see as a result of the above features are worth the investment in setting it up. Its free to use in most cases as you will probably have a MSDN subscription (maybe some CAL issues but i'm not sure) so your biggest cost will be in user training and configuration.

Answer 3

Firstly, I would suggest to consider what is your primary concern, what is the problem that you are tying to solve by rolling out TFS.

In terms of version control I would recommend the blog post from Martin Fowler on Version Control Tools and a follow up results of a version control systems survey. Admittedly this might be and is a subjective view of the subject but one that seems to be pretty popular. TFS clearly looses in comparison to other Version Control Systems.

I currently work with TFS2008 and we have migrated from SourceSafe and IBM ClearCase/ClearQuest and there is no doubt that TFS is far better then any of the previous tool, still it has its serious shortcomings and the new version will only partially address those.

Addressing the individual point you have raised:

• TFS allows to link builds with changesets and work items, but so many other systems
• I have not used OnTime but the workflow customisation can be both an advantage and a hindrance. Potentially, there might be a lot of work involved in creating a custom process template and you would still need a sensible UI on top of it (Team Explorer or Web Access might not be sufficient)
• Integration with Visual Studio is an advantage but there are add-ons to Visual Studio that allow integration with other source control providers

On the advantages of TFS I would probably mention

• Distributed builds and separate build agents - if you do many builds
• Full integration with Visual Studio via the Team Explorer
• Extensive reporting infrastructure (though you can only take full advantage of it when using MSTest for all the testing)
• SharePoint collaboration site for each project

Given the substantial cost of rolling out full TFS installation I would really consider what real business benefit would this solution give you that others don't.

Answer 4

Not shure about TFS, but the UI of OnTime is kind of non intuitive. Also I dont like that you have different fields for Bugs and Tasks. Of course you can always add your own fields, but the default layout should be ready to use.

We endet up using only "Bugs" even if it is a task.

I dont say its a bad product, but if TFS has a better UI for bugtracking now (which it hadnt 4years ago when I had to use it and hated it ), then this would be an argument for TFS.

Sorry to hear that you want to get rid of SVN. Thats a hard decision.