TeamBuild 2008

I was going to blog on TFS 2008 and TeamBuild 2008 together, but I figured I had better split it up to give the TeamBuild guys their due props!

We tried to use TeamBuild 2005 without much success as it didn't come with the expected Continuous Integration (not that it advertised it would, but the integration into any existing CI server was out of the question). Yes, we even tried the CI that was published in the MSDN article without success (it ran just fine, but wasn't useful for our resources or build configurations).

I went as far as writing a CruiseControl.Net plugin to try and use the TeamBuild TFS publishing capabilities (see previous post for more information).

When Micorsoft approached us asking us to join the TAP program they took particular interest in our CCNet setup and how TeamBuild 2008 would fare in a head to head comparison. We are now 3 weeks into that comparison and I have to say that TeamBuild is holding its own so far (and in some cases is the clear favorite).

Here is a quick run down of the comparison without trying to draw up charts, graphs, and tables:

• TeamBuild integration into TFS server and Visual Studio 2008 easily beat out the implementation for CCNet. This goes for the times when TFS is down for backup or other issues, you don't have to worry about a quiet period or period when the CI server shouldn't run.
• CCNet setup and ease of use beats TeamBuild, but not by much and it should be qualified with the fact that I have been setting up CruiseControl projects for almost 6 years now. With some documentation and help from the excellent folks at Raleigh I got the builds running as I wanted them to run, not just the default way that was shipped.
• CCNet dashboard and tray apps are more feature rich
• TeamBuild's CI options are more constrictive. You are only allowed a single trigger type and cannot combine them.
• TeamBuild's manual force of a build is more user friendly than CCNet has to offer and you can override properties being passed in (Huge!!).
• CCNet is a lot easier to customize to an organizations process.
• Extensibility would have to be a dead heat for me now. I have been able to create plug-ins for both CCNet and Team Build without much problem.

Not to take anything away from CruiseControl as I am a huge fan of the community and those who work hard to keep it at the head of the Continuous Integration movement, if a company is choosing to use Team Foundation Server as its source control, I would have to recommend they also use TeamBuild 2008.

For everybody else, CruiseControl is the hands down favorite and most usable CI platform on the net.