Version Control/Configuraiton Management
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Hi Folks, I will soon be starting on a new development project, in a relatively new company. One of the considerations we have to take into account is Version Control of the source. I have used Rational Clearcase, MS SourceSafe and PVCS Version Manager. Just wondering what you other folks use and why? And what type of project warrants source control? multiple releases? multiple developers? Etc. Matt ------ Accept that some days you are the pigeon and some days the statue.
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Hi Folks, I will soon be starting on a new development project, in a relatively new company. One of the considerations we have to take into account is Version Control of the source. I have used Rational Clearcase, MS SourceSafe and PVCS Version Manager. Just wondering what you other folks use and why? And what type of project warrants source control? multiple releases? multiple developers? Etc. Matt ------ Accept that some days you are the pigeon and some days the statue.
Don't forget to check out CVS. Jon Sagara Sagara Software
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Hi Folks, I will soon be starting on a new development project, in a relatively new company. One of the considerations we have to take into account is Version Control of the source. I have used Rational Clearcase, MS SourceSafe and PVCS Version Manager. Just wondering what you other folks use and why? And what type of project warrants source control? multiple releases? multiple developers? Etc. Matt ------ Accept that some days you are the pigeon and some days the statue.
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Hi Folks, I will soon be starting on a new development project, in a relatively new company. One of the considerations we have to take into account is Version Control of the source. I have used Rational Clearcase, MS SourceSafe and PVCS Version Manager. Just wondering what you other folks use and why? And what type of project warrants source control? multiple releases? multiple developers? Etc. Matt ------ Accept that some days you are the pigeon and some days the statue.
I've used the spectrum of source control systems and each have their advantage. On my own projects, I'll sometimes use cvs or SourceSafe. In situations where we're working on multiple platforms, I've used PVCS and it's web interface. But after 10 years of source control, I still lean towards good ol' rcs ... Just kidding ... I mean SourceSafe. I'm not sure why, but it seems to give me the least amount of hassles and it does it's job. The only problem I haven't seen solved elegantly with any system is the multiple release problem. Where team A is working on 1.0 and team B is working on 1.1. When 1.0 gets released and 1.1 is still being worked on, 1.0 is released and the code is split. In 1.0, a bug release goes out and now your source is seriously out of sync w/ 1.1, so you end up doing diffs and coding everything twice. You can't do a split because you can't have the 1.1 features merged into 1.0 source code. To me, this is simply poor management, but it's the real world. So to make a short story long, I really don't think there's any cut and dry answer, which is why we have different companies making source control systems. It's going to ultimately be up to you as a pioneer developer at the company to determine what the best system is going to be. Good luck! Bill http://www.ratebeer.com
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I've used the spectrum of source control systems and each have their advantage. On my own projects, I'll sometimes use cvs or SourceSafe. In situations where we're working on multiple platforms, I've used PVCS and it's web interface. But after 10 years of source control, I still lean towards good ol' rcs ... Just kidding ... I mean SourceSafe. I'm not sure why, but it seems to give me the least amount of hassles and it does it's job. The only problem I haven't seen solved elegantly with any system is the multiple release problem. Where team A is working on 1.0 and team B is working on 1.1. When 1.0 gets released and 1.1 is still being worked on, 1.0 is released and the code is split. In 1.0, a bug release goes out and now your source is seriously out of sync w/ 1.1, so you end up doing diffs and coding everything twice. You can't do a split because you can't have the 1.1 features merged into 1.0 source code. To me, this is simply poor management, but it's the real world. So to make a short story long, I really don't think there's any cut and dry answer, which is why we have different companies making source control systems. It's going to ultimately be up to you as a pioneer developer at the company to determine what the best system is going to be. Good luck! Bill http://www.ratebeer.com
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Hi Folks, I will soon be starting on a new development project, in a relatively new company. One of the considerations we have to take into account is Version Control of the source. I have used Rational Clearcase, MS SourceSafe and PVCS Version Manager. Just wondering what you other folks use and why? And what type of project warrants source control? multiple releases? multiple developers? Etc. Matt ------ Accept that some days you are the pigeon and some days the statue.
I switched to FreeVCS http://www.freevcs.de/index.htm a while back and really like it. Mind you there is just one of me, not a team. I like the client/server aspect and the fact that you can store everythinf encrypted if you want. It has a broad range of features and is easy to use and setup. Neville Franks, Author of ED for Windows. Version 4.01 just released, with a C++ Class View that actually works. www.getsoft.com
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Give StarTeam (by StarBase) a look. I used it for 5 years a my last job, and I *loved it*. It has internal bug tracking, a BBS, the best GUI of any of the rest, and a lot of other cool features. Anything else is total crap by comparison.
I used to use StarBase, but I found it very difficult to handle synchronizing and merging different development branches. I switched over to CVS because it was so much easier to handle multiple active development branches. I did find most things about StarBase very nice and I completely agree with you about the GUI. How do you handle development on multiple branches using StarTeam? Or do you?
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I used to use StarBase, but I found it very difficult to handle synchronizing and merging different development branches. I switched over to CVS because it was so much easier to handle multiple active development branches. I did find most things about StarBase very nice and I completely agree with you about the GUI. How do you handle development on multiple branches using StarTeam? Or do you?
Our programs required frequent changes based on criteria that could be changed by one or more of a group of 53 agencies (estate tax calculations - ugh). Fortunately, we knew that would happen ahead of time, so we designed the apps around that knowledge. We abstracted out the code so that any changes made could be implemented in a derived class, and this meant that the fixed bugs would propogate up the food chain. It was all very impressive actually. We needed to be able to slipstream tax law changes and bug fixes into the production line, so this mechanism worked very well. Since the most active area of change was the calculations themselves, we didn't have to worry much about the user interface. The whole experience was like trying to conduct surgery on a patient while they were playing a spirited round of tennis. I guess the short answer is, we didn't worry about it much. The only thing that was ever really frozen between major revisions was the feature set, and we only made UI changes to compensate for new data requirements (dialog box changes for the most part). I wasn't in charge of CM, so I don't really know what was done in that area for branching and stuff. Besides, the GUI in StarTeam is good enough that you can feel good about ignoring any minor flaw you might find in its overall design. :)
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I used to use StarBase, but I found it very difficult to handle synchronizing and merging different development branches. I switched over to CVS because it was so much easier to handle multiple active development branches. I did find most things about StarBase very nice and I completely agree with you about the GUI. How do you handle development on multiple branches using StarTeam? Or do you?
Hi, I work in a smaller development company, where the only point in branching would be to separate projects that were never supposed to meet again. So, I'm curious -- What is the reasoning behind branching and then merging later? What benefits are there, etc.? Thanks, John
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Hi, I work in a smaller development company, where the only point in branching would be to separate projects that were never supposed to meet again. So, I'm curious -- What is the reasoning behind branching and then merging later? What benefits are there, etc.? Thanks, John
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When you release your product, one branch goes toward future development while the other goes toward maintenance of the current version. Tim Smith Descartes Systems Sciences, Inc.
Ah, that's the real difference, then. Our company doesn't package and sell the traditional separate version numbers. Instead, clients under warranty continue to get upgrades as they come (usually a bug fix or an addition requested by another client). So, since we don't divide the release version from the maintenance version, we rarely need to branch the source. John
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Hi, I work in a smaller development company, where the only point in branching would be to separate projects that were never supposed to meet again. So, I'm curious -- What is the reasoning behind branching and then merging later? What benefits are there, etc.? Thanks, John
I have some utility libraries I have written that are used in several applications. Some of these applications are in FDA-certified medical devices, which means that any change needs to be thoroughly checked and documented before being committed on that branch (we can't afford a minor bugfix or performance enhancement that causes new bugs to emerge). Other applications are more research-oriented, so I can be more risk-acceptant with those. If I discover a problem (or potential enhancement) on the research branch, I may want to propagate it to the medical-device branch. He was allying himself to science, for what was science but the absence of prejudice backed by the presence of money? --- Henry James, The Golden Bowl
