Team Foundation Server 2010 and Offline development?

Question

Did Microsoft add anything to improve offline development?
I'm comparing TFS with Mercurial.

Edit #1: Work Environment Details

• 20 Developers.
• 1 location.
• TFS 2005 is already installed, but only being used by 4 developers.
• Those that use TFS, are only using it for Source Control
• Others using VSS. :(
• Many small projects (Over 50 projects active)
• Project Team size: 1 to 3
• Several employees work from home one day a week, but have VPN access

There is a group of our devs that have never used TFS that are still on VSS.
They are the ones pushing use to jump ship to Mercurial. Mercurial offline features is one reason they prefer it. Another reason is they just associate TFS with VSS regardless of my assertions to the contrary.
We do use FogBugz and everyone agrees that it is great! This kind of excited our love for NON Microsoft products that our MUCH lighter.

I don't think it is worth it.

Answer 1

I have heard during a talk (VS/TFS2012 launch) that you can use shelvesets for offline development. Also, if you go for TFS 2012, it is supposed to have pretty good GIT integration. So that would be the way to go (GIT and HG are very similar feature-wise, both have great offline support as well as support for distributed development - not through a proxy or smiilar).

Answer 2

It is not really easy to use TFS offline. Yes there is the tfpt online command, but that means, as long as you are disconnected, you can't make any checkin's, revert to old version, etc.

For offline development where TFS is dictated, perhaps it would be an idea to combine TFS with Mercurial, to get an offline repository.

If you need to be offline at times, or have a small team; I would suggest using Mercurial. There is a lot of overhead in TFS; although it can be a great tool in large teams that can be sure to be always connected.

Answer 3

I used to use TFS at my previous company. I am using Mercurial with TortoiseHg now and much happier. For small teams, especially if they are distributed, or if you have more than one machine, it is great.

I don't think the management overhead or feature set is worth it for small teams. In fact, I think the checkout (no checkout) model with Mercurial is superior to TFS's model.