NOTE: Recently (around 19th February 2021), the basic web app architecture got updated. The new version shows more possibilities, as it uses Azure Key Vault, Azure Monitor and introduces deployment slots.

When I switched to Hugo, I knew my new blog would not have the comments enabled. I planned it “for later”, as I didn’t want to use Disqus (available by default in Hugo).

This year I took part in “Advent of Code” - a challenge with the series of puzzles to solve using any programming language. I tried two years ago but resigned after the first day. This year was different, as we set the internal leaderboards, and I had a motivation to test my skills. My initial idea was to use only the PowerShell, but after some talks, I thought “maybe it’s a good moment to start learning go lang”?

Decision was made. And announced. And deadline set - so I will look stupid if I don’t do it. Something that was a strong decision started weakening. But setting a goal, and telling your friends about it is a strong motivator. Not to mention the WordPress annoyances during the transition period.

I blog with WordPress since the 17th of February 2009. At first, I used a blog-as-a-service approach, as I wanted just to start writing and see how it goes, not building all the infrastructure. I was writing for myself, to document interesting things I found during my adventures with SQL Server.

One of the new YAML pipeline steps I prepared recently involved interaction with work items. I wanted to add the comments to the task (with the task ID extracted from some file). So, I created a PowerShell step that was executing Invoke-WebRequest (with try/catch logic, obviously), the process finished successfully, but nothing happened. I mean - the comments were not there. Uhmmmm, why?! The log analysis gave me a slight hint about what was wrong (as seen in the post header picture):

Last week finally came that day: “I will give a shot to a Docker Desktop for Windows 10 Home”. To make it possible I run a long-postponed Windows Update to version 2004 (it allows to use WSL2). The upgrade and installation went smoothly, but the docker refused to cooperate.

In the previous post, I added the tasks to on-premises TFS using C#. This time I will add similar data using an Excel add-in. I will also learn how to accidentally remove the link from the task to the parent element.

An assignment: using data from the Excel file (sample data below) insert them into TFS (on-premises). Automatically. Start. You have three months from now. Or a few hours.

In the third part of a series, I focus on drawing the constraints' descriptions and the colours. And also a bit of PowerShell for automation.