Microsoft has launched the Beta of CodePlex, an online software development environment for open and shared source developers to create, host and manage projects throughout the project lifecycle. CodePlex was developed from scratch using C# 2.0 with Team Foundation Server as the backend.
CodePlex was developed to provide the following application development services:
- Release Management
- Work Item Tracking
- Source Code Dissemination
- Wiki-based Project Team Communications
- Project Forums
- News Feed Aggregation
Developers will interact with CodePlex by using the Team Explorer (TE) client for Visual Studio Team Foundation Server. It can be installed from your existing VSTF server or is available for download from the Microsoft Download Center. The TE client is a plug-in for Visual Studio 2005 but can also be used as a stand alone client for developers that do not have VS2005 installed.
Once a project is created, a project Coordinator uses the Issue Tracker in CodePlex to create work items and assign them to team members. Team members are in the Developer role in CodePlex. Once a defined set of work items are complete and the various components have been added to a build, you can create a release. CodePlex describes a release as follows:
"A release is the compiled source code that you can install on your desktop computer, server, or device. Depending upon the project, a release might consist of built binaries, such as dynamic link libraries (dlls) and executable files, configuration files, Web pages, or other program resource files.
For mature projects, there may be many releases to choose from. To determine which of these releases you should download and install, consult the project documentation, readme files (usually provided with every release), or ask a project team member"
CodePlex also provides the ability for you to create a discussion forum for your project. This provides members of the project as well as other general users with a place to discuss new features or to report bugs that they have found.
