Monday, June 26, 2006

Get latest version on check out

The question whether "Get latest version" of file should be performed on file check out by TFS rather than by user manually was discussed multiple times in the past and is being raised almost on weekly basis in forums.

While it appears that Microsoft will provide at least configuration option in the future versions, it will not be in SP1 (see Richard Berg post).

As Microsoft has been promising to release SP for qute a while, and it is still in the works and will not contain the feature mentioned, it appears that the community will have to learn to get by without that option. I hate conspiracy theories, but it surely appears that the users are being educated against their will. We all shall witness what would be the result.

In my opinion though, at least survey on the issue would be a great idea. Hopefully, someone at Microsoft is listening...

Monday, June 12, 2006

Source control path length limitation

When defining folders in source code control repository (or adding local paths hierarchies) it may be useful to keep in mind that maximum path length (of concatenated path) may not exceed 260 characters both for server and local path.

I thought that the days of MAX_PATH (for those who are in the know) are long gone, but it appears that TFS has the maximum length limit in its database (see post about the issue).

To make a personal confession, having upper limit imposed is not any problem for me. Sensible folder hierarchies and file names should not take more anyway.

Generally, the most probable case for the issue to occur is to use long local paths (the worst ones of the form C:\Documents and Settings\dumb_user\My Documents\Visual Studio 8\Projects\...) - but in those cases the user education will solve the issue. It may be even for the better that such users will receive maximum length error - source code has no place in My Documents.