Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 SDK for Java

Developers leveraging Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 can now just as easily extend the product using Java as if they would .NET. At least this is the promise from Microsoft after making available a new collection of dev tools designed for those using Java.

The Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 Software Development Kit for Java can be downloaded free of charge, and as it is the case with almost all SDKs, it packs guidance, code samples and redistributable components.

Developers need to know that by simply downloading the resources provided by the software giant they will automatically agree to the license of the Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 Software Development Kit for Java, and it should be a good idea to first check what they’re agreeing to.

According to Microsoft’s Brian Harry, devs are now able to expand the customization of their development environment in Eclipse or even outside, provided that they use VS Team Explorer Everywhere 2010.

It appears that a few third-party ISVs will also provide developers with expanded TFS support in their software offerings by leveraging the SDK, although Harry did not disclose their names.

Harry also did a wonderful job of highlighting the contents of the Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 SDK for Java:

“•A redistributable JAR file containing the TFS API’s. This is the same Java code that is used by Team Explorer Everywhere in the TFS plug-in for Eclipse and the Cross-platform command line client.

•The native code libraries used by the TFS API. We have a small amount of JNI code in the API to handle functionality that is not natively supported in Java on all the platforms that we support (such as access to Kerberos for authentication, or integrating with Keychain on the Mac).

•Full API documentation in Javadoc format. This is the same code documentation used by our developers, written by our developers.

•Code Samples. The team is very aware that getting started with this large code base can be quite a challenge, therefore they have put together a bunch of sample code to try and get you started. “

Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 Software Development Kit for Java is available for download here.