Tree Surgeon

Source code checked in, #94877

Project Collection Service Accounts — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 22:38:35 GMT

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Source code checked in, #94876

Project Collection Service Accounts — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 22:31:06 GMT

Checked in by server upgrade

New Post: Is there anyone maintaining Tree Surgeon?

hmobius — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 10:25:13 GMT

Just a quick note here to say that Tree Surgeon was one of the first ways I learnt about CI, good project structure, source control practices and so on. I think it's an excellent learning resource if nothing else and if it can be updated to reflect today's 'best practices' - whatever the consensus is that they are - then it's worth doing. I'd be happy to help out if an extra pair of hands is needed.

New Post: Is there anyone maintaining Tree Surgeon?

manderson — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 07:05:15 GMT

Hi Bill

It looks like a heck of an interesting project and I'm interested in doing it.

I've seen so many projects that couldn't put unit testing and CI together to save their lives.

Tree surgeon used to be my goto tool to show people how to structure their projects and the bonus was that the nant script provide pretty much everything needed to make a single task entry in ccNet and have them up and running.

My coding skills are rusty, as I've been doing Scrum coaching for the last handful of years but I've always been a heck of a maintenance programmer, so count me in on a T4 implementation.

Thanks

Malcolm Anderson

On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 5:19 AM, bsimser <notifications@codeplex.com> wrote:

From: bsimser

Malcolm,

First off let me apologize for the patch. I totally dropped the ball on it. Not sure if I even looked at it. I know the patch system here doesn't alert people to submitted patches (or didn't in the past) but if I said I was going to look at it, I didn't.

A lot of things have happened in the past year or two and it might make things redundant here. This might be paritally why I sat on the patch (besides being lazy or not reacting to it). There are a few competiting technologies that might make Tree Surgeon obsolelte. So let's go over where things are in Visual Studio right now and what we might do about it from a TS perspective.

First off there's the T4 templating system that's now baked into Visual Studio. Scott Hanselman has a great post on it here: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/T4TextTemplateTransformationToolkitCodeGenerationBestKeptVisualStudioSecret.aspx which has links to some tutorials.

From first glance at T4 (and to be honest I haven't done anything except tinker with it) it looks like Tree Surgeon. The templates look pretty much like what we use, except we're using code to search and replace tokens. With T4 it's built in.

Now having said that you still need to do some magic with T4 templates to make them work as they can't tell if you wanted this type of project or that type.

If TS was written today, it would probably use T4 as the templating engine instead of the one it uses now. That would eliminate a lot of the heavy lifting and probably make the system a little more robust, dynamic, etc.

So there's that.

Then there's the elephant in the room, NuGet.

I personally worked on NuGet with Microsoft and have a lot of passion for it. With NuGet you can just type something like "Install-Package ScaffoldApp" and have a complete application built out for you. Scaffolding is something that was introduced with ASPMVC but it's a fairly generic concept and basically what Tree Surgeon does. With NuGet, scaffolding is easy and you just have some scripts and whatnot combined with files (potentially T4 templates) and the system will build out for you.

Early on in NuGet I considered that TreeSurgeon could just become a NuGet package. However at the time it was still difficult to get something going (NuGet requires a project to start with so that was a bit of a show stopper). However some other scaffolding systems seem to work well (the MVC ones come to mind) so there might be an opportunity there.

The other option is a Visual Studio plug-in as there are a few that will create new projects for you (the HTML5 one comes to mind) complete with all the fixings.

In any case, if a new project was created in Tree Surgeon, I'm almost certain it should use NuGet to fetch the third party references.

Herein lies a bit of a dilemma with TS. For example when I start a new project I just go through the File > New Project and pick some appropriate starter (say a Windows Phone 7 application). Depending on the app platform (WP7, Web, WinForms, WPF) there are a set of packages that I'll just go and install (like Ninject or MVVM Light or something, along with some platform specific ones). It takes me 5 minutes but then I've got a scaffolded project that's ready to go (ala Tree Surgeon).

However two things come to mind. First off, these are installed with NuGet and some people still haven't jumped onto that band wagon. So I think there should be a decision here. Tree Surgeon requires NuGet. That way, the dependencies and whatnot for getting these packages works. That's one of the issues with the current codebase (and why talk of a plugin system was going on). The third party components come and go. We need a system to manage them without having to get a new version of Tree Surgeon every time a new build tool comes out. That plugin system was NuGet (except Nuget does it much better).

Okay, getting past that hurdle then the issue of how to serve up the tool so that a) its easy to get/use/access and b) it supports all the configurations that are out there. There are a *lot* more platforms than when Tree Surgeon started. TS was meant to be a solution starter so it would create your app along with unit test project and a client. The only problem is things like ASPNET MVC came along and already has the unit test framework generator built into the project creator. That sitll leaves WinForms and WebForms projects in the dust though and future of some of these (how many people start WebForms projects these days and where is WinForms going to be in a year when we have Win8 that doesn't support creating them in VS2012).

Pile on top of that the multitude of platforms available now. WPF, Silverlight, MVC, WebForms, WinForms, WP7. How many and how to support/include any or all of these in Tree Surgeon.

Maybe I'm making a mountain out of a molehill but the landscape has changed and I think Tree Surgeon needs to change with it. The question is in what direction?

Read the full discussion online.

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New Post: Is there anyone maintaining Tree Surgeon?

bsimser — Thu, 31 May 2012 13:54:29 GMT

Posted this in a blog entry today here: http://weblogs.asp.net/bsimser/archive/2012/05/31/tree-surgeon-alive-and-kicking-or-dead-and-buried.aspx

Let's see if we can get some more traction on this.

Updated Wiki: About

bsimser — Thu, 31 May 2012 12:31:39 GMT

About

Open Source
Tree Surgeon is an open source project. This means you are free to use it, and the source code is available to look at.

Tree Surgeon is released under the MIT License. Please make sure to read the License before using or distributing the software.

Project Team
Check out the team here.

Copyright
Copyright © 2007 - 2012 Bil Simser
Copyright © 2005 - 2006 Mike Roberts & ThoughtWorks

Updated Wiki: Documentation

bsimser — Thu, 31 May 2012 12:30:15 GMT

Using Tree Surgeon

Tree Surgeon is pretty simple, but it is fully functional. Its based on Mike Roberts's series of articles on How to setup a .NET Development Tree (see links below).

Download the installer, and just run the GUI. Your generated project will appear in your My Documents folder and you should move it to wherever you like to develop on your machine (the meta-root if you read the article above.)

Your generated project has a Visual Studio solution waiting for you in the src folder. Also, if you go into the project root directory, you can run an automated build. It should look a bit like this:

C:\Program Files\TreeSurgeon\MyNewProject>go
NAnt 0.85 (Build 0.85.1793.0; rc1; 28/11/2004)
Copyright (C) 2001-2004 Gerry Shaw
http://nant.sourceforge.net

Buildfile: file:///C:/Program Files/TreeSurgeon/MyNewProject/MyNewProject.build
Target(s) specified: test

compile:

 [solution] Starting solution build.
 [solution] Building 'MyNewProjectConsole' [AutomatedDebug] ...
 [solution] Building 'Core' [AutomatedDebug] ...
 [solution] Building 'UnitTests' [AutomatedDebug] ...

run-unit-tests:

    [mkdir] Creating directory 'C:\Program Files\TreeSurgeon\MyNewProject\build\test-reports'.
     [exec] NUnit version 2.2.2
     [exec] Copyright (C) 2002-2003 James W. Newkirk, Michael C. Two, Alexei A. Vorontsov, Charlie Poole.
     [exec] Copyright (C) 2000-2003 Philip Craig.
     [exec] All Rights Reserved.
     [exec]
     [exec] OS Version: Microsoft Windows NT 5.1.2600.0    .NET Version: 1.1.4322.2032
     [exec]
     [exec] .
     [exec] Tests run: 1, Failures: 0, Not run: 0, Time: 0.060 seconds
     [exec]
     [exec]

test:

BUILD SUCCEEDED

Total time: 4.4 seconds.

Creating a .NET Development Tree Blog Series

This is the series of blog posts created by Mike Roberts that started Tree Surgeon.

Introduction
Building the Development Tree
Adding Files to the Tree
Checking into Source Control
Automating the Build
Extending the Build
Adding Unit Tests
Automating Unit Tests and Packaging

Updated Wiki: Documentation

bsimser — Thu, 31 May 2012 12:29:56 GMT

Using Tree Surgeon

C:\Program Files\TreeSurgeon\MyNewProject>go
NAnt 0.85 (Build 0.85.1793.0; rc1; 28/11/2004)
Copyright (C) 2001-2004 Gerry Shaw
http://nant.sourceforge.net

Buildfile: file:///C:/Program Files/TreeSurgeon/MyNewProject/MyNewProject.build
Target(s) specified: test

compile:

 [solution] Starting solution build.
 [solution] Building 'MyNewProjectConsole' [AutomatedDebug] ...
 [solution] Building 'Core' [AutomatedDebug] ...
 [solution] Building 'UnitTests' [AutomatedDebug] ...

run-unit-tests:

    [mkdir] Creating directory 'C:\Program Files\TreeSurgeon\MyNewProject\build\test-reports'.
     [exec] NUnit version 2.2.2
     [exec] Copyright (C) 2002-2003 James W. Newkirk, Michael C. Two, Alexei A. Vorontsov, Charlie Poole.
     [exec] Copyright (C) 2000-2003 Philip Craig.
     [exec] All Rights Reserved.
     [exec]
     [exec] OS Version: Microsoft Windows NT 5.1.2600.0    .NET Version: 1.1.4322.2032
     [exec]
     [exec] .
     [exec] Tests run: 1, Failures: 0, Not run: 0, Time: 0.060 seconds
     [exec]
     [exec]

test:

BUILD SUCCEEDED

Total time: 4.4 seconds.

Creating a .NET Development Tree Blog Series

Updated Wiki: Home

bsimser — Thu, 31 May 2012 12:28:59 GMT

Welcome to the Tree Surgeon Project

Have you ever spent a few days setting up a new development tree? Have you ever spent several days setting up several development trees? Have you even spent weeks trying to perfect all your development trees using a set of best practices?

If the answer to any of the above answers is 'yes', then you'll like Tree Surgeon!

Tree Surgeon is a .NET development tree generator. Just give it the name of your project, and it will set up a development tree for you in seconds. More than that, your new tree has years worth of accumulated build engineering experience built right in.

Give Tree Surgeon a spin today!

More Information

Download
Acknowledgments
About
Support
License
Development

Updated Wiki: Documentation

bsimser — Thu, 31 May 2012 12:28:26 GMT

Creating a .NET Development Tree Blog Series

Updated Wiki: Documentation

bsimser — Thu, 31 May 2012 12:27:52 GMT

Creating a .NET Development Tree Blog Series

Updated Wiki: Documentation

bsimser — Thu, 31 May 2012 12:27:06 GMT

Creating a .NET Development Tree Blog Series

This is the series of blog posts created by Mike Roberts that started Tree Surgeon.

Introduction
Building the Development Tree
Adding Files to the Tree
Checking into Source Control
Automating the Build
DevelopmentTreePart5
DevelopmentTreePart6
DevelopmentTreePart7

Updated Wiki: Documentation

bsimser — Thu, 31 May 2012 12:26:20 GMT

Creating a .NET Development Tree Blog Series

This is the series of blog posts created by Mike Roberts that started Tree Surgeon.

Introduction
Building the Development Tree
Adding Files to the Tree
DevelopmentTreePart3
DevelopmentTreePart4
DevelopmentTreePart5
DevelopmentTreePart6
DevelopmentTreePart7

Updated Wiki: Documentation

bsimser — Thu, 31 May 2012 12:25:40 GMT

Creating a .NET Development Tree Blog Series

This is the series of blog posts created by Mike Roberts that started Tree Surgeon.

Introduction
Building the Development Tree
DevelopmentTreePart2
DevelopmentTreePart3
DevelopmentTreePart4
DevelopmentTreePart5
DevelopmentTreePart6
DevelopmentTreePart7

Updated Wiki: Documentation

bsimser — Thu, 31 May 2012 12:25:17 GMT

Creating a .NET Development Tree Blog Series

This is the series of blog posts created by Mike Roberts that started Tree Surgeon.

Introduction
DevelopmentTreePart1
DevelopmentTreePart2
DevelopmentTreePart3
DevelopmentTreePart4
DevelopmentTreePart5
DevelopmentTreePart6
DevelopmentTreePart7

Updated Wiki: Documentation

bsimser — Thu, 31 May 2012 12:24:56 GMT

Creating a .NET Development Tree Blog Series

This is the series of blog posts created by Mike Roberts that started Tree Surgeon.

DevelopmentTreeIntroduction
DevelopmentTreePart1
DevelopmentTreePart2
DevelopmentTreePart3
DevelopmentTreePart4
DevelopmentTreePart5
DevelopmentTreePart6
DevelopmentTreePart7

Updated Wiki: Documentation

bsimser — Thu, 31 May 2012 12:24:27 GMT

Creating a .NET Development Tree Blog Series

Updated Wiki: Home

bsimser — Thu, 31 May 2012 12:24:04 GMT

Welcome to the Tree Surgeon Project

Using Tree Surgeon

Tree Surgeon is available to Download. Its pretty simple, but it is fully functional. Its based on Mike Roberts's series of articles on How to setup a .NET Development Tree .

Download the installer, and just run the GUI. Your generated project will appear in your My Documents folder and you should move it to wherever you like to develop on your machine (the meta-root if you read the article above.)

Your generated project has a Visual Studio solution waiting for you in the src folder. Also, if you go into the project root directory, you can run an automated build. It should look a bit like:

C:\Program Files\TreeSurgeon\MyNewProject>go
NAnt 0.85 (Build 0.85.1793.0; rc1; 28/11/2004)
Copyright (C) 2001-2004 Gerry Shaw
http://nant.sourceforge.net

Buildfile: file:///C:/Program Files/TreeSurgeon/MyNewProject/MyNewProject.build
Target(s) specified: test

compile:

 [solution] Starting solution build.
 [solution] Building 'MyNewProjectConsole' [AutomatedDebug] ...
 [solution] Building 'Core' [AutomatedDebug] ...
 [solution] Building 'UnitTests' [AutomatedDebug] ...

run-unit-tests:

    [mkdir] Creating directory 'C:\Program Files\TreeSurgeon\MyNewProject\build\test-reports'.
     [exec] NUnit version 2.2.2
     [exec] Copyright (C) 2002-2003 James W. Newkirk, Michael C. Two, Alexei A. Vorontsov, Charlie Poole.
     [exec] Copyright (C) 2000-2003 Philip Craig.
     [exec] All Rights Reserved.
     [exec]
     [exec] OS Version: Microsoft Windows NT 5.1.2600.0    .NET Version: 1.1.4322.2032
     [exec]
     [exec] .
     [exec] Tests run: 1, Failures: 0, Not run: 0, Time: 0.060 seconds
     [exec]
     [exec]

test:

BUILD SUCCEEDED

Total time: 4.4 seconds.

More Information

Download
Acknowledgments
About
Support
License
Development

Updated Wiki: Documentation

bsimser — Thu, 31 May 2012 12:23:38 GMT

Links

New Post: Is there anyone maintaining Tree Surgeon?

bsimser — Thu, 31 May 2012 12:19:48 GMT

Malcolm,

First off let me apologize for the patch. I totally dropped the ball on it. Not sure if I even looked at it. I know the patch system here doesn't alert people to submitted patches (or didn't in the past) but if I said I was going to look at it, I didn't.

A lot of things have happened in the past year or two and it might make things redundant here. This might be paritally why I sat on the patch (besides being lazy or not reacting to it). There are a few competiting technologies that might make Tree Surgeon obsolelte. So let's go over where things are in Visual Studio right now and what we might do about it from a TS perspective.

First off there's the T4 templating system that's now baked into Visual Studio. Scott Hanselman has a great post on it here: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/T4TextTemplateTransformationToolkitCodeGenerationBestKeptVisualStudioSecret.aspx which has links to some tutorials.

From first glance at T4 (and to be honest I haven't done anything except tinker with it) it looks like Tree Surgeon. The templates look pretty much like what we use, except we're using code to search and replace tokens. With T4 it's built in.

Now having said that you still need to do some magic with T4 templates to make them work as they can't tell if you wanted this type of project or that type.

If TS was written today, it would probably use T4 as the templating engine instead of the one it uses now. That would eliminate a lot of the heavy lifting and probably make the system a little more robust, dynamic, etc.

So there's that.

Then there's the elephant in the room, NuGet.

I personally worked on NuGet with Microsoft and have a lot of passion for it. With NuGet you can just type something like "Install-Package ScaffoldApp" and have a complete application built out for you. Scaffolding is something that was introduced with ASPMVC but it's a fairly generic concept and basically what Tree Surgeon does. With NuGet, scaffolding is easy and you just have some scripts and whatnot combined with files (potentially T4 templates) and the system will build out for you.

Early on in NuGet I considered that TreeSurgeon could just become a NuGet package. However at the time it was still difficult to get something going (NuGet requires a project to start with so that was a bit of a show stopper). However some other scaffolding systems seem to work well (the MVC ones come to mind) so there might be an opportunity there.

The other option is a Visual Studio plug-in as there are a few that will create new projects for you (the HTML5 one comes to mind) complete with all the fixings.

In any case, if a new project was created in Tree Surgeon, I'm almost certain it should use NuGet to fetch the third party references.

Herein lies a bit of a dilemma with TS. For example when I start a new project I just go through the File > New Project and pick some appropriate starter (say a Windows Phone 7 application). Depending on the app platform (WP7, Web, WinForms, WPF) there are a set of packages that I'll just go and install (like Ninject or MVVM Light or something, along with some platform specific ones). It takes me 5 minutes but then I've got a scaffolded project that's ready to go (ala Tree Surgeon).

However two things come to mind. First off, these are installed with NuGet and some people still haven't jumped onto that band wagon. So I think there should be a decision here. Tree Surgeon requires NuGet. That way, the dependencies and whatnot for getting these packages works. That's one of the issues with the current codebase (and why talk of a plugin system was going on). The third party components come and go. We need a system to manage them without having to get a new version of Tree Surgeon every time a new build tool comes out. That plugin system was NuGet (except Nuget does it much better).

Okay, getting past that hurdle then the issue of how to serve up the tool so that a) its easy to get/use/access and b) it supports all the configurations that are out there. There are a *lot* more platforms than when Tree Surgeon started. TS was meant to be a solution starter so it would create your app along with unit test project and a client. The only problem is things like ASPNET MVC came along and already has the unit test framework generator built into the project creator. That sitll leaves WinForms and WebForms projects in the dust though and future of some of these (how many people start WebForms projects these days and where is WinForms going to be in a year when we have Win8 that doesn't support creating them in VS2012).

Pile on top of that the multitude of platforms available now. WPF, Silverlight, MVC, WebForms, WinForms, WP7. How many and how to support/include any or all of these in Tree Surgeon.

Maybe I'm making a mountain out of a molehill but the landscape has changed and I think Tree Surgeon needs to change with it. The question is in what direction?