Posts Tagged ‘version control’

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The Changing Landscape of SCM

May 1st, 2012 by brad hart
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It’s 1998. I’m just starting my job at Rational Software, supporting ClearCase. During my training and through my first few months handling customer issues, I developed a deep understanding of the complexities of SCM and the heavy-handed centralized control that ClearCase provided its customer base. Wrappers, triggers and script automation were the key to a tightly controlled, centralized development environment.  In the developers’ eyes, dealing with the version control tool was just a part of doing their job.

Developers like to code, not “waste time” with tools or infrastructure. They are creators and want to create their masterpiece. Check-in, Check-out, Merge, etc. are not ways developers want to spend their time, especially if they are forced to deal with poor performance from an SCM tool, whether it’s by the tool itself, or the myriad of wrappers that were forced on top of the SCM tool their company chose. In a developers eyes, any time spent NOT writing code is wasted time.

However, despite the negative ramifications of SCM centralization and control to the developer’s productivity, there are absolute benefits to the enterprise that cannot be lost. Security, traceability, visibility and control are paramount to running a development organization.

My decision to come work at AccuRev in 2001 was based on the software’s unique ability to provide all the features the enterprise needs, while minimizing the negative impact SCM has on developer productivity. The ease at which AccuRev provides visualization and control over the entire development process was truly a game changer.  And while still a centralized SCM tool, AccuRev was designed to minimize the pain developers felt during their day to day operations.

It’s now 2012 and the SCM landscape has changed dramatically for developers. De-centralized / Distributed development is all the rage now. Version control tools such as Git and Mercurial are providing developers with the experience they demand. Local copies of repositories give unparalleled performance. Strong branching models provide near painless branching and merging. Tools like Git are designed with the developer in mind. Performance, merging strength and extremely in-depth control of all operations are the focus of product features.

All that said, while distributed SCM tools are great for developers and fine for open source development, Enterprises are experiencing chaotic development and losing control in their engineering organizations. So which way do you go? Centralized appeases the Enterprise, De-Centralized appeases the developers.

The answer is both. Now that AccuRev has introduced Kando, Enterprises can maintain all the security, traceability, audit-ability, visibility and process control their business depends on, while giving their developers exactly what they want – to use Git for their day to day development.

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Posted in AccuRev

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General Availability for Industry’s First Seamless Integration of Enterprise-Level Security and Visualization into Git

April 3rd, 2012 by AccuRev
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AccuRev released for general availability today the first Git integration that seamlessly bridges the world of commercial tools and open source software configuration management.

Kando General Availability for Industrys First Seamless Integration of Enterprise Level Security and Visualization into GitAccuRev’s Kando, an enterprise security and compliance platform for Git, which was released in beta in January, complements the open source SCM tool with additional functionality, allowing organizations using Git to simultaneously leverage enterprise-level security and requirements traceability.

Kando is the first software development solution that enables Git development shops to add workflow, issue tracking, security, change requirements and other capabilities to the software development process, all while maintaining the flexibility and familiarity of Git environments.

Kando’s ground-breaking enterprise-level security and compliance capabilities allow its users to:

  • Comply with enterprise-level regulations, by providing full audit and traceability
  • Secure Git with access control capabilities, and support for enterprise authentication via LDAP and Microsoft Active Directory
  • Visualize and manage development processes that use Git in AccuRev’s StreamBrowser™ environment
  • Support Software Change and Configuration Management (SCCM) through change-based development with AccuRev Change Packages

“Our Kando Beta announcement in January had an overwhelmingly positive response, and it is clear that Git adoption has expanded well beyond the Linux community, into product development and IT,” said Lorne Cooper, AccuRev’s CEO. “Kando can solve many security and requirements traceability problems that enterprise organizations face when adopting Git, and really allows Git an opportunity to scale the development process across enterprise software development teams.”

During the development of Kando, AccuRev established the Kando Technical Advisory Board, comprised of representatives from several enterprise organizations with Git environments. To hear what they are saying, or to learn more about Kando, visit http://www.accurev.com/kando.

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Posted in AccuRev, Integrations, SCM, Software Configuration Management, Software Tools, version control

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Buying Software Tools is like Buying New Sneakers for Your Development Team

December 16th, 2011 by clucca
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sneaks Buying Software Tools is like Buying New Sneakers for Your Development TeamSCM tools have a profound effect on the day to day life of a developer. These types of systems have either helped or hindered development teams deliver software. SCM systems are like the “hub” of a development team. It’s where teams artifact important work, integrate changes, save important ideas and add features for customers. It’s the center of our development universe!

It’s all about the developers. They need to be free to innovate and get changes out the door quickly. But they can’t if they are stifled by tools that get in the way. Tools need to be able to ENHANCE the software development process. Many people think that source control is just a place to checkin / checkout code. But it’s more than that, it’s where the software development process comes to life. If the SCM system isn’t up to the task of a complex development process, developers can’t innovate.

Sometimes it’s hard to understand that you have a tooling problem, even if it’s staring you in the face. Think of an old pair of trusty sneakers that you have at your house. We all have a pair, they are many years old, beat-up, dirty, torn… but we still wear them. Our feet hurt when we wear them, but for some reason we refuse to get rid of these old sneakers. Until one day (usually after a sprained toe) we decide to buy a brand new pair and after a little breaking in… WOW our feet feel great! Why did I keep the other pair so long?

Software tools are often like this, there is an “if it ain’t broke (too much), don’t fix it” attitude. We often keep tools too long after their expiration date. You’ll hear it from your development team, moaning about the pains of merging code, switching workspaces, checking out … it’s enough to make you cringe. But still we don’t change. Your old SCM is the sneaker, and collectively as a group you and your team have a hard time recognizing when your feet hurt.

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Posted in Best Practices, SCM, Software Configuration Management, Software Tools, version control

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