Software Configuration Management and Agile Software Development

Posts Tagged ‘version control’

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

December 16th, 2011 by clucca

SCM 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

Tags: Software Configuration Management tool version control

Software Configuration Management and Version Control Are Not the Same… Trust Me!

November 18th, 2011 by clucca

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Did you know that CM systems back in the day were basically people? This is where the term “check-in” & “check-out” comes from- it refers to the days when there where actual software librarians would record peoples changes and check them in and out like books on disk or punch cards. It’s mind boggling to think of software this way.

If I was to ask software developers today what “software configuration management” was, they would probably say “SCM? Like Subversion?” Incorrect! You need to trust me on this one, SCM is not the same as a version control system. Yes, your version control system is an SCM tool (confusing?) but SCM is a broader discipline and technique that encompasses the management of change in software.

The introduction to the IEEE “Standard for Software Configuration begins with:

SCM constitutes good engineering practice for all software projects, whether phased development, rapid prototyping, or ongoing maintenance. It enhances the reliability and quality of software by:

Providing a structure for identifying and controlling documentation, code, interfaces, and databases to support all life cycle phases
Supporting a chosen development/maintenance methodology that fits the requirements, standards, policies, organization, and management philosophy
Producing management and product information concerning the status of baselines, change control, tests, releases, audits, etc.

Let’s be clear- all of the things on this list do not fit under the heading of your version control system. Many of them will require practices and policies to maximize your development efforts and methodologies. With version control, release engineers will still have to perform some of these SCM related functions:

Merge early and often
Enforce a workflow for development teams to follow
Record and have full visibility into all of the changes that were made
Write build and compiler scripts
Automate builds, deploys and tests
Understand the dependencies between projects and code
Maintain the development environment for a team
Be responsible for the final product going out the door

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. A talented release engineer or SCM expert can do all of those things independently, but his or her job would be a lot easier with SCM tools that can automate and facilitate the necessary practices and processes. (This includes version control, compilers, debuggers, editors, continuous integration machines, automated deploy, and the ITS system.)

At it’s core, SCM answers the question “Somebody did something, how can one reproduce it?” In addition it’s about understanding and establishing relationships among items that are likely to change. It’s a tricky job, not one that’s easily understood. We have to understand the relationships between versioned artifacts, like code, hardware, documents, design models and even directory structures. In addition we have to do all of the necessary things to make those versions valuable to our organization. We have to design process, workflow, automation, build automation, reports and security.

With all of this, don’t tell me that SCM is the same as version control. Trust me on this one!

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Posted in AccuRev, Best Practices, SCM Resources, Tips and Tricks, version control

Tags: release management SCM version control

Version Control Software Can Help Ensure Success and Sanity

October 19th, 2011 by clucca

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Back in the day when software development was more linear and proceeded at a more predictable pace with longer project timelines, version control wasn’t much of an issue. In most cases it wasn’t too hard to keep track of code changes, feature developments, and configuration files. If a developer – or even a team – created several different versions, multiple copies could be kept and, with some careful labeling and archiving, any version could be recreated or referred to later on.

But all that changed with the coming of Agile processes and the evolution of the multiple development teams approach, with different developers and teams branching off the main development trunk line to pursue new features or versions and then merging them back into the main line. If keeping multiple file copies could be prone to error in the old linear approach, you can imagine the danger looming with multiple teams working simultaneously. Suddenly, version control software seemed like a really, really good idea.

Now, of course, there are any number of version control software tools, ranging from very basic products such as open source CVS and Subversion, to some really sophisticated and comprehensive products that provide a variety of helpful software configuration management benefits. Regardless of the sophistication of the particular version control software being used, they all provide one critical benefit — the ability for multiple teams in multiple locations to work off the same source code base with minimal confusion and errors.

If you’re trying to sort out the features-and-benefits of version control software, here’s a short checklist of questions that can help you narrow down your choices:

Simplicity: Is your software development process modest enough for simple, text-based functionality or are you using a more complex, multiple team approach that would benefit from a graphic, browser-type tool?

Efficiency: Do you spend a lot of time analyzing and resolving merge conditions? If so, consider version control software with a visual tool that can help facilitate frequent integrating and merging codeline changes.

Collaboration: Do your developers work on code changes individually, with the need to occasionally share code with other developers or team members? Then consider version control software that includes the ability to both keep files in private workspaces and share them openly with other team members.

Version Control: Are your products subject to frequent, often substantial revisions that could be prone to errors without the ability to reproduce full version histories of all files and configurations? Then look for version control software that provides time-stamped atomic transactions and an append-only database that prevents information from being lost and makes it easy to roll back code changes to a previous state.

Choosing the right version control software can make a major difference in your software development management, enabling you to get more robust, less error-prone products to market quicker and more efficiently.