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Should a TFVC project be used with non-.NET projects?

It seems, based on what I'm seeing in Team Explorer, the TFVC VCS is built to support .NET applications.

Can it reasonably support other languages as well (PHP, Ruby, Java, Python, etc)? By reasonably, I mean, not being tied to an IDE like Eclipse or command-line. That is, using a GUI client that's built to support non-.NET projects as well. It seems Team Explorer, the client for TFS does not think so:

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Solution

  • Using Team Explorer without starting a new project or solution

    Sure, TFVC is the version control part that is stored on a Team Foundation Server. Team Explorer is the version control provider that integrates directly into Visual Studio and offers a high level of integration as well. You can also make use of the Source Control explorer functionality of Team explorer without having to load a Visual studio Solution. All you need is to map a source control folder to a local folder to start working.

    This way you are not making use of any Project type in Visual Studio, but you're solely using the TFS client built into the Visual Studio Shell. You can do any operation using the Source control Explorer as if it were a stand-alone client.

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    Extending Visual Studio to support extra languages

    One way to make use of TFS for other languages is to extend visual Studio to support the langauges you want. There are all kinds of plugins for Visual Studio to support: Ruby, Python and PHP.

    Eclipse, Cross Platform and 3rd party

    There is direct integration available for Eclipse using Team Explorer Everywhere, which can cover the needs of a Java development team. The development studio's from JetBrains also offer a native TFVC client as part of the product.

    Commandline & windows explorer integration

    After installing Team Explorer or Team Explorer Everywhere you'll also get a command line client (tf) that allows you to do source control operations from the commandline. You don't need to ever open Team Explorer after setting up your TFS server connection. Team Explorer Everywhere ships with a Java based version of that same client, which works on Mac and Linux as well.

    You'll be able to use the Tortoise-like Windows Explorer integration offered by the Team Foundation Server Power Tools, so you'll be able to check-in files directly from Windows.

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    SourceSafe compatibility

    There's the MSSCCI (pronounced mis-key) provider that allows applications to use the old "SourceSafe" API to connect to TFS. This includes many, many IDE's and tools.

    Almost all of these solutions at least require the installation of Team Explorer or Team Explorer Everywhere, but as you can tell, they're not the only way to access TFS.

    Bridges

    And if that doesn't work, there are a few tricks you could apply as well. There's a Subversion bridge for TFS that allows TFS to mimic a Subversion repository and you can use git-tf to create a local git repository that can push to TFS.

    Git support in TFS 2013 and VSO

    And finally TFS 2013 and Visual Studio Online support hosting a Git repository instead of a TFVC repo. You can use any Git compatible client (inclucing Visual studio 2012 and newer) such as Eclipse (eGit) or XCode to connect to TFS. For cross platform TFS usage, this is by far the way with the broadest support as it comes to 3rd party products.