CM Basics - November 2006
http://www.cmcrossroads.c
om
CM Basics offers readers the answers to their configuration
management
"how-to" questions with tips from the experts,
real-life case studies,
product reviews and industry news coverage.
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This Issue Sponsored by:
- Build and Test Automation -- new from Electric Cloud
http://www.cmcrossroads.net/go/cid=619&mid=104
4&id=509
- Free Book Excerpt: Learn Proven SCM Practices
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5&id=859
- Avoid Testing Incompatible Code
http://www.cmcrossroads.net/go/cid=621&mid=104
6&id=139
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In this Issue
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1. Lightweight Code Review Episode 4:
The Largest Case Study of Code Review, Ever
2. What to Do With Those Pesky Tags
3. Webcast: Geographically Distributed Development:
How to Keep Control Across the Globe
4. The CM Crossroads Blogzone
5. Ask Mr. Make: The Trouble with Hidden Targets
6. Webcast: A New Approach to Application Release
Management
7. DevZone: Build and Release Management
8. Recent Discussion in the Forums: What's the reluctance
moving to CM
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Lightweight Code Review Episode 4:
The Largest Case Study of Code Review, Ever
by Jason Cohen
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In Episode 3 we discussed several types of code review. In
this Episode we give the results of the largest-ever case
study on peer review.
Forget theory — what's it really like?
The ACM and IEEE archives are replete with papers on code
review and inspection. But after a casual perusal you notice
that most studies are done with fewer than 50 reviews,
usually in a university setting with students and contrived
code samples. That's fine for academics, but what's it like
in the real world? With real software developers (ranging
from junior to senior) and real software projects with
1000's of files and real deadlines?
Read More >>
ht
tp://www.cmcrossroads.com/content/view/7232/174/
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Free Download - Two Chapters of SCM Patterns
AccuRev's latest SCM Book Excerpt is from Steve Berczuk and
Brad Appleton's "Software Configuration Management
Patterns." This book shows how proven SCM practices can
foster a healthy team-oriented culture that produces better
software. The patterns are presented with an emphasis on
practicality.
Download the first 30 pages of this book now for free.
http://www.cmcrossroads.net/go/cid=620&mid=104
5&id=859
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What to Do With Those Pesky Tags
by Ben Weatherall
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Tags, also known as labels, are a common piece of metadata
in Version Control systems. They allow a symbolic linking of
many files/revisions together using a human understandable
name. They come in many types and flavors and their use is
often hotly contested, some times all the way to the
political level. First, a little summary of what tags are
and what they are often used for.
Fixed Tags: Fixed tags are tags that are applied once and
then "never" moved. By "never," I mean
by anyone other than a CM person. They are used to identify
a fixed set of file/revisions and generally correspond to a
milestone point in time (also called a version). Even a
Configuration Manager should refrain from playing with fixed
tags as it could easily invalidate an auditable milestone.
All changes to fixed tags should either be logged and
tracked by the Version Control (VC) tool itself, or by the
CM person who made the changes in an official CM Record.
Read more >>
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tp://www.cmcrossroads.com/content/view/7229/174/
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CM Crossroads Webcast Series:
Geographically Distributed Development:
How to Keep Control Across the Globe
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Wednesday, November 8, 2006
1:00 PM Eastern / 10:00 AM Pacific
Geographically distributed software development is fast
becoming the norm and managing these wide-spread teams is
shaping up to become one of the biggest challenges faced by
enterprises today. The increasing complexity of the software
being developed is crying out for a new more sophisticated
development environment - one that links all these disparate
stakeholders while organizing, routing and tracking all of
the communication. This webcast will address how common
issues with globally distributed application development can
be addressed through a single solution -- Application
Lifecycle Management (ALM).
[Register for this Webcast]
http://www.c
mcrossroads.com/webcast/1828
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enabling you to
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incompatible code.
Download your Guide to Overcoming Development Challenges
with Change
and Configuration Management Tools and take control of your
code.
http://www.cmcrossroads.net/go/cid=621&mid=104
6&id=139
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CM Blogzone:
Read the latest from the CM Crossroads bloggers
http://www.cmblogs.com
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- Some Assembly Required by Mark Bools
What I've Learned So Far...
ht
tp://www.cmcrossroads.com/content/view/7233/230/
- Configure This! by Carson Lucky
Chapter 5.1: The Warning
ht
tp://www.cmcrossroads.com/content/view/7228/230/
- SCM andDave by David Hegland
CR Sharing Part I - Overview
ht
tp://www.cmcrossroads.com/content/view/7211/230/
CR Sharing Part II - Floating CRs while Branching Files
ht
tp://www.cmcrossroads.com/content/view/7213/230/
CR Sharing Part III -- Addressed in Build
ht
tp://www.cmcrossroads.com/content/view/7214/230/
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The Trouble with Hidden Targets
by John Graham-Cumming
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Take a look at this Makefile. It contains a nasty trap for
the unwary that can cause Make to report odd errors, stops
the -n option from working and prevents speedy parallel
Make. It can even cause Make to do the wrong work and update
an up-to-date file.
.PHONY: all
all: foo foo.o foo.c
foo:
touch $ foo.c
%.o: %.c
touch $
On the face of it this looks pretty simple. If you run this
through GNU Make it'll build foo (which creates the files
foo and foo.c), then it'll use the pattern at the bottom to
make foo.o from foo.c. It ends up running the following
commands:
Read More >>
ht
tp://www.cmcrossroads.com/content/view/6519/120/
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CM Crossroads Webcast Series:
A New Approach to Application Release Management
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Thursday, November 16, 2006
1:00 PM Eastern / 10:00 AM Pacific
The act of releasing an application for use in a production
environment is arguably the most critical point of an
application’s lifecycle, yet IT organizations routinely use
a combination of manual processes and in-house written
scripts to manage this process.
Adopting release management best practices will ensure
smooth transitions of application changes from development
to production. A more efficient release management process
will enable IT to deliver an effective release management
service that achieves service level goals, reduces
operational costs, complies with government regulatory
requirements and delivers a quality customer experience.
[Sign Up for this Webcast]
http://www.c
mcrossroads.com/webcast/1829
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DevZone: Build and Release Management
=======================================
The New Build and Release Management Developer Zone has been
created in
conjuctionwith IBM Rational as an environment where people
can learn, collaborate,
and share ideas about strategies and techniques to achieve
build and release
excellence in their organizations. We hope you’ll become a
part of our community.
Visit the Build and Release DevZone >>
http://www.cmcrossroads.com/content/blogsection/14/206/
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Recent Discussion in the Forums:
What's the reluctance moving to CM
===========================================
What's the reluctance moving to CM
In a recent forum posting the question was posed, "Why
do you think people are skeptical about coming into CM &
becoming CMers?"
What do you think?
http://w
ww.cmcrossroads.com/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,180/
topic,70047
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