We held a “First Look at Kando” webinar on Tuesday to mark the launch of our back-end platform for security and compliance with Git. Unfortunately we weren’t able to answer all of the questions in the allotted time, so here are answers for some of the most commonly asked questions.

Q: Can a developer use Git without an AccuRev workspace?

A: Absolutely. With Kando, the developer does not require an AccuRev workspace. Kando uses a native git repository, so developers can use Git with no modifications – it works seamlessly with AccuRev on the backend. It’s all native Git-to-Git.

Q: Is the Git repository limited to a single AccuRev stream, or can it follow most or all of the AccuRev depot?

A: The Git repository is not limited to a single AccuRev stream, it is completely configurable. When you create a repository, by default, it’s going to ask you to map the master branch in that Git repository to a stream in AccuRev, but you can set up multiple mappings. You could map 100s of branches to streams if you wanted to.

Q: Let’s say I’m an integration manager for a project. Can I create a Git repo using Kando, Git clone it on my system, and let other users clone from me?

A: You can certainly use that model if that’s how you’re most comfortable, where you clone from the bare Git repository associated with AccuRev, and then other people can clone from you. There’s nothing to preclude that from happening because it’s normal Git-to-Git. Another possible solution would be to have all of your developers push and pull from the Kando repository, then you could merge those changes up to the QA or Master branch using AccuRev or Git if you prefer. Kando supports both models.

Q: What about integration with code review tools (like Gerrit).  We actually use Gerrit as the centralized control for our Git repositories

A: If you are connecting Git to anything, whether it be Gerrit, GitHub, an open source library, etc., everything will work. Because Kando is reliant on Git working natively, you can connect to Gerrit or any other tool that integrates with Git. You can push and pull from Gerrit and GitHub as normal. When you push to the remote that is associated with Kando, which is connected with AccuRev, those changes end up in AccuRev in the stream that you’ve mapped to the Git repository’s branches.

Q: How do you handle bugs in Kando itself? Is there support?

A: Kando is an officially supported AccuRev product. If there are defects in Kando, they’ll be handled through our support and services organization the same as they would with AccuRev. Kando is developed using an Agile development methodology, so as we get feedback on defects and enhancement requests, we will turn around fixes and enhancements as quickly as possible.

Still have questions? Ask below, visit www.accurev.com/kando for more information, or check out the Kando video.

‘Tis the season to make unsupportable predictions for the future.  Despite my prior record (and I remain surprised that we don’t yet have personal jet packs) I’d still like to share a long-range weather forecast for the software industry.

You’ve been warned.  From here on, you’re on your own.

Prediction 1: Everyone Will Claim They Are Agile

And 50% of them will be wrong, just based on the Nokia test.  And of the rest, half won’t get any value from it.

There are a lot, and here I really need to underline a lot, of bad development practices out there.  For every organization that is killing it with Agile, there are five (my agilesta friends say ten) organizations that are limping along, delivering buggy code to their customers, late, and missing committed functionality.  And often all three.

This “Going Agile Without Knowing How” problem is probably an inevitable result of the success the early-adopter teams had with Agile methods.  For instance, when I watch The Olympics, figure skaters make skating look effortless.  When I do it, I look like a drunken hippo and hurt my butt.  It’s hard to stop and remember that these athletes, in addition to good genetics, spent years at the rink with their coaches learning, trying, failing, and improving, before they got in front of the TV cameras.

Agile has crossed the chasm, and the great majority of organizations have too few people, with too little coaching, and hardly any tooling.  Sure, your boss doesn’t realize how useless your stand-up meetings are, or that your code isn’t fully tested at the end of a sprint, but she’ll eventually see that your customers are not happy.

Prediction 2: Development for Mobile Devices Will Still be Small

Yes, Mobile is really big, and moving fast.  It’s just that the great majority of the work to support useful mobile apps remains in the back office.  When we’re finished inventing new ways to swipe our coffee-stained fingers across our screens, the value of the great majority of our apps is back in the glass house, running Java and C++ on big ‘ole honking (virtualized) servers.

The development problem in the era of proliferating small platforms, remains the problem of dealing with large, complex, data and it’s interactions.

Sleep well, Larry Ellison.

Prediction 3: The Gap Between Pros And Amateurs Will Grow

Every new software technology “spike” rewards the early adopters with higher productivity, which can level the playing field for the “newbie” or occasional software developer.  But as application complexity grows, as the platforms become more complex and development environments become richer, the professional advantage becomes more significant.

There isn’t much of a disadvantage in time-to-market for the young developer, maybe working on his laptop with open source tools and no identifiable process. The difference between them and a team of experienced professionals, working with industrial strength tools and procedures, and building apps that run businesses on virtualized hardware in a web connected world, is in “value created.”

Created Value is a concept that we’ve all been learning during the past ten years of Agile evangelism.  Created Value is measured at the customer side, and primarily by the classic metrics of software: how does the software help me get my job done better and faster?

There was a time when the lowest cost labour source for a software project was the key criteria.  Over the past two years, software projects have been revisiting their decisions as they’ve seen the crippling effects of buggy, unmaintainable, badly architected products.  We’ve seen the evidence with a hiring boom in the US for developers and QA alike.

In short, in 2012, we’ll see a renewed focus on quality of development, over quantity.  And a better appreciation for the talent, tools, and techniques, that create it.

I’m very excited about our 5.2 release! We’ve completed the move to PostgreSQL on the back end, fully internationalized our products, and added a slew of new features, like per-element security so that you can lock down certain files or directories to specific groups or users.

In addition to moving to PostgreSQL, we’ve taken advantage of its capabilities to increase performance in a few key areas such as update, especially when using cross-links, populate, and more. And as a first step towards fully embracing 64bit servers, we now support 64bit CPUs on Linux servers. You can look forward to additional performance boosts as we exploit the capabilities of PostgreSQL in the future.

Haven’t upgraded in a while? Check out what else is new! To get a full flavor of all of the new functionality we’ve added recently, check out recent webinar which highlights what’s new.

If you haven’t tried our plug-ins in a while, we’ve put out new releases of our Eclipse and Visual Studio plug-ins for all versions of AccuRev. Eclipse and Visual Studio plug-ins will work with older releases, so no need to wait for 5.2 to start benefiting from the new features in the plug-ins.

We’ve fully integrated the Web UI into the plug-ins so you can now use all of the following functionality: version browser, annotate, stream browser, and all of AccuWork. Also, in 5.2 you can now access the Web UI with a single click from most screens. For instance, if you want to send somebody a URL of a file or diff, you can just click the “copy to clipboard” button in the toolbar and then compose an e-mail to somebody and paste in the URL. When they click the URL, they will go right to that file or diff. And the Web UI now allows you to print any table that it supports.

While we are in the process of making the new functionality in the Web UI available in all of our UIs, this is a great first step to quickly link to the new functionality.

A Few More Details on What’s Available Via the Web UI
If you haven’t used the Web UI or are using an older version, you may not have heard that there is an entirely new version browser in the Web UI and for AccuWork users- AccuWork on the Web has been completely revamped. For instance, it is easy to search by keyword and you can do drag and drop query editing.

5.3 and Beyond… Here We Come!
The database and internationalization are two very important infrastructure changes which will accelerate both our engineering velocity as well as our market penetration. With our upcoming 5.3 release we will be re-introducing our quarterly pace of releases as we had with our 4.8 and 4.9 releases. With the switch to PostgreSQL and an internationalized code base complete, you will see the release of new functionality faster than ever before. In preparation for 5.3 and beyond, we’ve just launched a new product survey as one of the many ways we collect product priorities. Make sure to look for it and fill it out. It is one of the best ways to have a significant impact on our product roadmap. If you haven’t gotten an e-mail yet, you may not be in our survey database. Just ask your AccuRev administrator for a link.

I mentioned on this blog last week that AccuRev had big news coming that would mark the next phase in the evolution of SCM – the first big leap since AccuRev introduced the stream-based approach. Well, the big news has arrived with this week’s launch of AccuRev SCM Version 5.2. AccuRev Version 5.2 arms developers with one of the few SCM solutions on the market today that offers streams and enhanced enterprise performance, reporting, security, and scalability through the postgreSQL relational database we’ve embedded into our system.

With this release, AccuRev has also introduced AccuWorkflow 2.0, a collaborative process-centric governance tool that enables automation and compliance with an issue-based lifecycle workflow directly within AccuRev. AccuWorkflow is especially valuable for developers of software solutions for highly regulated industries such as financial services with its stringent requirements for SOX compliance.

AccuRev 5.2 is available immediately.  Check out the press release here  for more details, or see us demo 5.2 at Agile 2011.   You can also check out a brief podcast we put together that examines the major issues and challenges today’s enterprise developers face and how we’ve attempted to help solve those challenges with AccuRev 5.2.  Click here to listen in.

For more info, check out What’s New in 5.2.

The AccuRev team is gearing up for an upcoming West Coast tour, first stop, San Francisco!  AccuRev, along with SQE, Agile Journal, Urbancode and Rally Software, will host the popular Agile seminar, “Agile Comes to You” tomorrow, March 16^th in downtown San Francisco, and Thursday, March 17^th in Bellevue, WA. The complimentary Agile seminars focus on Agile development best practices, and best-of-breed solutions necessary to scale and optimize development processes and teams. So if you’re in the San Francisco or Seattle areas this week, and are interested in an Agile seminar, stop by!  Going to EclipseCon? March 21^st-24^th we’ll be back down in Santa Clara, CA, where we’ll be exhibiting at EclipseCon 2011.  We hope to see you there!

In a previous post we examined an “Agile pain points” survey that highlighted some of the top obstacles organizations are facing when trying to adopt Agile practices.  Now that these obstacles have been identified, you might be asking – as we did – where do we go from here?

The Importance of Agile Tools

We think these findings reinforce the need for ALM tools to support Agile implementation, accelerate adoption and build a foundation to scale Agile.  Developers need integrated, yet flexible and customizable toolsets encompassing Software Configuration Management, Build and Release Management and Agile Lifecycle Management.

Agile Roadmap

In addition to Agile tools, development organizations also need to adopt new approaches to support Agile. Here is a roadmap for organizations as they head down the Agile path:

- Take a fresh approach to capturing requirements. The first thing you should consider is that the focus of requirements in an Agile world shifts from developing a detailed specification, to collecting user stories.  Having a development process and the necessary tools to support gathering, tracking and managing of user stories is crucial when going Agile.

- Invest in test. Even when not practicing explicit test-driven development, the importance of testing – unit test, regression, and system-wide testing – is considerable throughout the Agile development process no matter what method is being used.

- Release early and often. Organizations should look for planning tools that track when user stories are done and ready for customer feedback, source code tools that show where user stories are in the development process, and build and release tools that create releases continuously.

- Build In-house expertise from the outside in. Organizations should work with vendors that have a full suite of training and coaching offerings, in particular seeking those vendors that go beyond generic Agile training and instead examine the organization’s existing processes and goals and customize training for their specific needs.

- Incorporate release aspects in early Agile plans. Building in real-world items like testing and deployment will allow issues to surface early, before they become entrenched in the code base and difficult to address.

- Recognize that scaling Agile reveals dependencies between projects and teams. Having the ability to track both Agile and traditional projects in the same tool interface can prove critical to ensure a smooth scaling out process.

- Don’t forget about requirements when going “all in” with Agile. Lastly, organizations should be sure tools and processes clearly show team members all key aspects of requirements and are flexible and powerful enough to keep pace with the dynamic nature of a fully realized Agile environment.

We’d like to hear what you think – what steps have you and your organization taken to support Agile adoption?  What have are some other steps organizations should consider?

For details on AccuRev’s findings and more on these recommendations, check out the full Agile Adoption Pain Points Survey report, available free for download at http://www.accurev.com/whitepaper/agile-pain-points-survey.

To borrow from a common print journalism trick, consider this the cleaning out the desk drawers of my AccuRev mind.  Or if you tend to avoid newspaper columnists, especially sports ones, then let’s just call this a random “did you know” or “what’s new” post.  I think the last time I did one of these was in the AccuRev Version 4.5 days, and we now entered the days of AccuRev 4.9, so there might be a few things tossed in here that aren’t necessarily fresh off the presses…

AccuRev 4.9 introduces the long sought after “stale filter”.  Actually, it’s an Update Preview search, but it shows not just (stale) files, but also anything that will change at update time, like moves and new elements.  You can even perform actions in that search pane, like Diffs, prior to updating…

AccuRev 4.9 also brings you the -t <time_spec> argument for both stat and pop.  This lets you provide a transaction or time stamp to the command so you can reference a configuration of code at a point in time without having to utilize a time-based stream.

Sticking with command-line tidbits, you can now use pop -D to populate elements without including their entire directory structure.  Very useful in situations where you might have different applications contained under a root folder yet want to populate them at a top level.

Another really helpful enhancement is to the Deep Overlap search.  Now when you Merge a file that is in Deep Overlap, AccuRev changes the status to (kept)(member) in the filter so that you know which files have been operated on.  You also have the ability to promote from this search window, and subsequently the promoted file will no longer appear in the filter.

If you haven’t started using the AccuRev WebUI, you’re really missing out.  One lesser known capability in the WebUI is the ability to take a regular query, Group by any field, and automatically convert it to a bar, line, or pie chart.  This report can then be sent and accessed as a URL, and obviously can be viewed by users without installing the classic GUI.

To further bind the classic GUI and WebUI together, AccuWork issues in the classic GUI now contain a hyperlink “Issue URL” which takes you directly to the URL rendering of the issue in the WebUI.  And for those with a very extensive stream structure, have you checked out the St\ream Filter to personalize and only display streams that you care about?

For folks running Continuous Integration, or for those who just want to be able to use command-line to see what’s changed in a stream over time – including inherited content! – I think you’ll be happy with this one.  You can use the accurev diff command to compare the contents of a single stream with itself over a period of time, without having to create a time-based stream.

Have you noticed that when using the Stream Issue Mode in the StreamBrowser, you now see Incomplete Issues right in the “Show Active…” box attached to streams?

And lastly for now, bonus points for anyone who can comment here to point out the AccuRev command-line typo that still works as if it is spelled correctly.  AccuRevers or former ones need not apply 

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Our Agile Comes to You seminar tour with AnthillPro and Rally is starting to wind down, with only 1 more seminar to go in this round!  (Check out our events page for more information.)   It’s been a very successful tour thus far, we have answered a lot of your questions about Agile adoption and Agile pain points, worked with some great presenters, and met a lot of Agile enthusiasts.

Check out what attendees are saying about Agile Comes to You, read a presenter’s point of view about a recent seminar, or follow #Agile2U on Twitter.

Agile Comes to You is brought to you by:



Missed the seminars?  Here are a few more events you might be interested in: http://www.accurev.com/events.html

Our Agile seminar tour, “Agile Comes to You,” is back in action for the fall.  With a new line-up of cities, accomplished keynotes, our favorite partners and our favorite sponsors Agile Journal and SQE, we know this round of seminars could be our best yet.

“Agile Comes to You” Seminar Fall Line-up:

Agile Comes to You, Minneapolis Seminar

9/14 in Austin

9/15 in Dallas

9/28 in London

9/30 in Amsterdam

10/5 in Santa Clara

10/6 in Orange County

10/19 in Minneapolis

10/20 in Detroit

10/26 in New York City

If we are coming to your area, keep an eye out for registration on the AccuRev Events Page, you won’t want to miss it.  At “Agile Comes to You,” you will:

• Learn the core fundamentals of Agile development practices and what they mean to the various roles within your development team.
• Understand how you can apply software configuration management, continuous integration, static analysis, code review and quality management best practices within your Agile team.
• See how an integrated set of best-of-breed tools can help to enable quality, collaboration and visibility for development teams, their managers and executives.
• Hear examples from industry leaders of how development organizations like yours have reduced risk, boosted productivity and cut development costs with Agile.

For Twitter updates on “Agile Comes to You,” use #agile2u.

“Agile Comes to You” is brought to you by the following:

Who? Damon Poole, AccuRev Founder and CTO, Agile expert and popular speaker.

What? Presenting “True Agility Requires Us to Re-examine Our Beliefs” for Nashua Scrum Club.

Where?  45 High Street, Nashua, NH 03060

When? Thursday, September 9, 2010

Why should you attend? Damon says “Too many projects that “go Agile” are actually far from true Agility. They end up reverting to old habits or just change the labels on the activities that they are doing without changing what they actually do on a day to day basis. As a result, many so-called “Agile” projects get few if any of the benefits of Agile and some are even worse off than before! Why does this happen?”

This session will give you an opportunity to uncover and re-examine your mental model of software development by taking a look at the top ten Agile blind spots. This will allow you to discover the blind spots you or your organization may have so that you can work towards removing them and start experiencing the full benefits that true Agility offers.

Visit Nashua Scrum Club to register!