TFS Tip 2 of 10: Shelving is your friend.... or is it?

Ofcourse shelving is one of the better new features in the TFS Source control system. It gives you a good method of saving work in progress on the server (and therefor your back-up...... you do make a back-up of your TFS database don't you?). But, shelvesets on a project that is in its maintenance phase.

Yes i am talking of that phase after release where you fix all the stuff you put a TODO comment on while developing the actual product. Things like:

// TODO: This doesn't actually work but gives a result that looks right.

or

// TODO: IMPORTANT FIX THIS BEFORE RELEASE!!!!

So when you are in your maintenance phase, every build you make should be with the very latest tested code. But who is to say you have the very latest code to test? With Visual Sourcesafe it was easy to spot the checked out files. If files are checked out, there is a big chance someone made changes that you don't have to test. Though i do admit you can usually assume that either the developer isn't finished with his work, or those changes shouldn't be tested anyway. But lets entertain the idea your developer forgot to check in his finished work.

With shelve sets changes are not so easy to spot (lets check all workspaces of all your developers and see if they have shelve sets...). A developer can keep the shelveset checked out but this is not always the case. So, in the maintenance phase, keep your shelvesets checked out, and never forget to check in completed work/shelvesets.