Uploading extensions to TFS

When creating a TFS extension, one ends up uploading it to the server all the time. Doing so through the Web UI is tedious, so here's a script for that.

All OAuth scopes in TFS

Did I already complain that the API surface of Team Foundation Server is sorely underdocumented? Well, it is. In today's episode, we're going to explore the gamut of things an OAuth Web client can and cannot do.

In my work, the OAuth clients are TFS client-side extensions. In order to access the TFS API, they need to declare the set of scopes they're interested in in the extension manifest. The scopes are supposed to be documented here, but the list over there is incomplete.

Lightning fast

Last time I've revisited Google Play order processing, there was a 6 hour gap between order submission and the card being charged. The delay was artificial, naturally. I'm not exactly sure what was the reasons for such a design, probably, that was an allowance for return and refund; if the customer's remorse kicks in before the card is charged, Google doesn't have to pay the card transaction fee.

Effective July 2017, the gap is no longer on the order of hours; now it's 5-7 minutes.

Team Foundation Server schema

UPDATE: some more on the TFS schema here and here. On the recent developments: here.

I happen to run an on-premises instance of Microsoft Team Foundation Server for a medium sized software shop. TFS has pretty good reporting capabilities, but out of the box, almost no cross-collection reporting. Fortunately, those who are blessed with admin rights in TFS get to connect to the production database server.

Who does that?

Amazing discovery of the day: Microsoft Excel respects Scroll Lock.

Abusing COM for tightly coupled process interaction

Twice in my career, I had to deal with unreliable third party algorithm libraries in a server situation. There's a service type program that follows a general request/response pattern. Processing a request involves calling a third party library that I don't control and that crashes far too often for comfort. The service must survive the crash, log it, and emit an error response.

The saga continues

Remember, some time ago Google has removed the order amount in USD from their Merchant Console? Ever since, I've used the earnings report at the end of each month to capture that data item.

Two months in, starting with the March 2017 earnings report, that's not an option, either. The order amount is there, so is the transaction fee, but the order ID isn't.

At least the support representative seemed to agree that it was a bug.

UPDATE: they've fixed it without any announcements.