May 2005 - Posts
I have recently had a go at getting VSTS working with CCNet, got build and source control working the next step is the unit testing. Unless somone can tell me otherwise then for a standalone build machine you need VS2005 and VSTS to get the unit testing libs and MSTest.exe. Seems a little crazy.
I have also been looking for a way to convert NUnit tests to MsTest, this indicates it can be done but I can't seem to locate anything, ideas welcome.
So after I blogged wanting a build system for .NET 2.0 I tried the CCNet lists to see what folks thought, the good man Owen indicated it could be a config issue or indeed a defect. After trying a few things I managed to get the execute task to work while the commandLineBuilder task was failing. So CCNet was indeed running on .NET 2.0, pie 1.
I was experincing hang problems after adding a VSS block to work with VSS 2005. After upping my debug level I noticed it was disliking first the user name and then the date format. The date formats in VS 2005 are in the format dd:mm:yy;hh:mm with the ; character causing a exception in the dateparse. I downloaded the source and patched the file, converting the source to VS2005 and building with out problems, pie 2.
I have sent the patch onto the CCNet folks as I was unable to run the unit tests to check that my patch will regress, hopefully so. The next step now is to mod the XSL files for the MSTest format so the unit/web tests can dispay there results in CCNet.
Been a while since I checked this out, they have moved from GDN to SF (thankfully) , have some Community Server powered forums up and running and have a wiki. Not sure on there unit testing direction but I would love to throw MbUnit into the mix if anyone from NTeam wants to discuss.
Trying .NET 2.0 on your project, chances are you will need a build server. You could try Team Build (via Team System) but with the lesson in pain in installing VSTS how many have. Team Build only offers nightly builds and lacks most of the features in CCNet however at the moment CCnet is not stable on .NET 2.0. I am wondering if its time for a home brewed solution.
have spent a bit of time using the unit testing features of Team System, now what I say you may feel will lean other ways but I am a unit testing fan at heart and I will look at and enjoy using any system that lets me unit test. The basic assertions are all there soif your used to IsEqual, IsSame, IsTrue etc then you will find them all there. There are some extended assertions also, the exception assertion and the datadriven assertion to name just a few. I have not played that much with the extended assertions that much yet but it does look good. MbUnit does feature a lot, lot more :) Team system features a test manager to manage all your unit and functional tests or you can do this from the tab view, I do however miss the right click and run feature of Testdriven instead you need select and run from the tab, right click and run is much easier. Running tests with the debugger is featured and thats great to see.
On a side issue some work needs to go into getting the features of Team System running with other build systems, the build system in Team System is not even close to CCNet.
Focused on my new job at the moment but hopefully will be able to dedicate more personal time towards MbUnit soon. I have added the MbUnit License now, its been something of a grey area but as can be seen its largely the same license that NUnit has.
Been a hetic month for me and the blog posts have all but dried up. I have been on the move again, joining the newly formed .NET team at the Mobile & Wireless group, our first project is a .NET 2.0 project (
http://www.portix.com). Well done to the folks on the team for getting this project out. We have been using VS2005 on this project, my thoughts on its unit testing abilities I'll post at some point.
I have setup a
personal blog on blogspot, I first blogged on blogspot so its nice to be back on there. Its completely non techy but if gardening is your passion then check it out :D
There is a wiki thread discussing MbUnit vs NUnit. I tend to avoid comparing both frameworks when our aims are to achieve the same thing, test software. Long term we do aim to to use the expansion hooks in NUnit so you can hook in MbUnit to NUunit (in much the same way Charlie explains CUnit and VSTS). MbUnit is now a open source project and under a similar license to NUnit, the details of that license will be added to the wiki and CVS ASAP. I welcome Charlie and the NUnit folks to share, contribute and discuss.
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