Mike Gunderloy on Pervasive Tooling

Mike Gunderloy has an article up on developer.com (Pervasive Tooling) that talks about the ten fundamental tools every software developer should have in their toolbox.

Every software developer has their own favorite set of tools they use to build software. Depending on the job you're doing at the moment, you might choose a slightly different tool: this compiler or that one, for example, or the version control system preferred by a particular client. But some kinds of tools are pervasive. Just as no one would dream of being a carpenter without hammers and saws, no one should be developing Windows and Web software in 2006 without stocking their toolbox with these basic categories of tools.

From: Pervasive Tooling

I was happy to see that there was only one sub-item for which Microsoft doesn't currently have a product offering: a GUI automation tool. Mike may take exception in some cases with the following list, but the vast majority of his requirements are met by:

  1. Version Control - Team Foundation Server / Visual SourceSafe / CodePlex
  2. A Web Browser - Internet Explorer
  3. An Integrated Development Environment - Visual Studio (Express/Standard/Professional/Team Editions)
  4. Virtual Machines - Virtual PC / Virtual Server (Free!)
  5. A Local Database Server - SQL Server Developer Edition
  6. A Build Tool - Team Foundation Build / MSBuild
  7. A Testing Tool - Team Edition for Testers / Team Test Load Agent
  8. An XML Editor - Visual Studio (for the IDE version he mentions)
  9. Some Kind of Scratchpad - Notepad / WordPad / SharePoint 2007's Wiki capability / etc.
  10. An RSS Reader - Outlook 2007 / Windows Live

1089

Tags: tfs | team foundation server | vsts | team system