Archive for the ‘CM’ Category
Quick Guide to Mercurial for svn Users
Posted on July, 9 at 9:31 am | Filed Under CM, Python
Ned Batchelder has put together a quick guide to mercurial basic commands for subversion folks who are part of the move from a centralized version control tool like subversion to mercurial, a distributed version control system. You can read it here. Mercurial (and other dvcs tools like git and bzr) seems to be gathering steam [...]
Southpark RSC Invite Video
Posted on June, 4 at 5:34 pm | Filed Under CM
Here is the South Park video invite to the RSC 2009 conference incase anyone is looking for it. The video that was up on the big screen today:
Is Change and Configuration Management Working?
Posted on October, 31 at 9:35 am | Filed Under CM
So your company has implemented a change and configuration management (CCM) system instead of a lighter version control. It was likely purchased at considerable cost, so how is it working and is it worth all the effort? Here is a quick way to measure the effectiveness of the tool, implementation and hopefully training to tell. [...]
Can Open Source Projects be Selfless?
Posted on October, 23 at 10:11 pm | Filed Under CM, Python
I had an interesting open source related discussion today. Could an open source project start up and sustain itself if the primary users of the software are not software developers and not able to directly contribute to the development of the project itself? What spawned this was the idea that open source projects grow out [...]
Another Configuration Management Snafu – Asus Edition
Posted on October, 15 at 10:51 pm | Filed Under Asus eee, CM
I think these netbook manufacturers aren’t quite ready for the big leagues yet … at least not in their configuration management process. When are they going to learn that someone needs to have absolute control over the contents of what goes into a build of their products? Here is the latest problem, this time Asus [...]
A Mistake to Use Open Source Version Control Tools?
Posted on October, 1 at 6:58 pm | Filed Under CM
I’m noticing that software shops from small mom and pop IS organizations to large Independent Software Vendors continue to adopt open source tools for version control and configuration management. I wonder if this is a mistake. Open source communities are very different from most software shops that write code for pay. While the open source [...]
How much extra does Changeset Version Control cost developers?
Posted on September, 23 at 9:07 am | Filed Under CM
I have written before about the benefit of advanced configuration management using change sets, namely that it gives you a clear understanding of what is in a build of your software and allows you to control that at a higher level than just individual file versions. The problem some developers face though, is that those [...]
Configuration Management Snafu – Asus edition
Posted on September, 22 at 10:39 am | Filed Under Asus eee, CM
It seems that CM problems are all the rage in with computer hardware companies these days. The most recent comes to us courtesy of Asus, the manufacturer of my beloved eee 900. Asus has released rescue CDs that contain software cracks, cracked licenses, and confidential company documents. It sounds like the software got into the [...]
Real World Configuration Management Snafu
Posted on September, 8 at 9:43 am | Filed Under Asus eee, CM
The Piehead News wonders what a configuration management system is and if java programmers care about that short of thing. That is a great question. Most software engineers / programmers see the value of a version control system, because it lets them edit their code base with others without too much fear of loosing their [...]
Advanced Version Control Software with Change Sets
Posted on September, 3 at 1:52 pm | Filed Under CM, Collaboration
Following a track back from my post “Is Branching the Answer?“, I found this article on an Accurev blog that largely agreed with my misgivings about using branches in version management software to manage the flow of changes through an organization’s development process. The post mentioned that like Telelogic Synergy, Accurev also follows a change [...]
Google Insights for Search tells the future for Configuration Management Systems
Posted on August, 29 at 6:35 pm | Filed Under CM, Software
I’ve been playing with Google’s new Insights for Search tool and it is a very compelling tool. It allows you to view the Google searching user base’s interest in search terms over time and by geography. This is an incredibly useful tool for judging how interested people are in ideas. Avinash Kaushik over at Occam’s [...]
Is branching the answer? There is a better way…
Posted on August, 28 at 10:10 am | Filed Under CM, Collaboration, Software
Well, what is the question first. Here it is: How do I promote code changes through a team to release Version control tools since almost the beginning have supported some sort of branching scheme. We did this to allow concurrent changes to files without content loss. This was needed as soon as teams of software [...]
DJango on Jython!
Posted on August, 21 at 12:22 pm | Filed Under CM, Collaboration, Jython
Yes it looks like it is finally here via random.choice(['idea', 'rant', 'link', 'tip']). This I think is great news for both Jython and DJango and shows in particular how far Jython has come lately. The momentum on the Jython front is also great to see since I persuaded our product team to add Jython into [...]
New Directions in Version Control
Posted on July, 19 at 11:26 am | Filed Under CM
There are two trends that have emerged over the last few years that have had a significant impact on the version control tool space. In the past we’ve seen major shifts as version control tools went from small file oriented versioning systems like SCCS and RCS to tools that more easily managed a complete source [...]
Real World Configuration Management Snafu
Posted on July, 17 at 8:49 am | Filed Under CM, Software
Here is a short example of what happens when Configuration Management goes wrong. bunnie’s blog is detailing the manufacturing arrangements in china for Chumby. Along the way the author has gained a new respect for the high level of skills evident in the Chinese manufacturing sector and hopefully a new appreciation for configuration management. After [...]
Version Control Repository Conversion Tools
Posted on June, 29 at 2:24 pm | Filed Under CM, Software
There are a few tools available that assist in converting historical information from one repository format to another. The most common supported conversions are between CVS and Subversion to the distributed VCS tools. The most feature complete of these is Tailor, although it struggles with mapping data from less capable repositories like CVS and subversion [...]
Git for Computer Scientists
Posted on June, 29 at 2:23 pm | Filed Under CM, Software
Here is a quick paper on GIT internals that explains its object storage, history and merges in terms of a Directed Acyclic Graph.
Hack Attack: How to set up a personal home Subversion server
Posted on June, 27 at 10:33 pm | Filed Under CM, Software
Here is an article over at Lifehacker on how to setup a your own subversion install. If it were me, I might instead look to distributed version control tools like Mercurial or Bazaar which are easier to setup and more flexible that subversion for individual users. I did find the following description of subversion funny: [...]
Merges Shouldn’t be Scary
Posted on June, 19 at 3:58 pm | Filed Under CM, Software
Mark Shuttleworth continues his series of posts on version control tools by pointing out that it is the time to accomplish a merge that is crucial, not how easy it is to create a branch. This is an extremely important point and in my experience a place where many tools and even developers break down. Mark [...]
Distributed VCS Performance
Posted on June, 14 at 4:14 pm | Filed Under CM
The whole pull for using a distributed version control system (VCS) is that it scales much better. With a centralized VCS there will be an inevitable point where the performance drops due to either server or network limitations. Investing in high end servers, network infrastructure and optimized tools can push that point out a fair [...]
Mark Shuttleworth On Distributed Version Control Systems
Posted on June, 13 at 4:18 pm | Filed Under CM
Mark has been thinking through the issues related to choosing a distributed version control system. There is certainly a move toward more distributed architectures as software development patterns scale in size and location. I’ll keep updating this post with links to Mark’s posts as they come in. Choose Lossless VCS tools if you have the [...]
Source Gear’s DiffMerge
Posted on June, 6 at 10:00 pm | Filed Under CM
Source Gear gives its diffmerge tool away for free!
“Mozilla Project moves to Next Generation Version Control System.”
Posted on June, 6 at 9:54 pm | Filed Under CM
So it is a little late (this happened in April), but here is the inside scoop on Mozilla moving to mercurial for its distributed version control system.
Mercurial Google Vid
Posted on June, 6 at 7:17 pm | Filed Under CM
Bryan O’Sullivan gave a presentation to google covering Mercurial, a distributed revision control system. Here is the vid: Also check out this vid of Bryan describing Mercurial Queues:
Linus talks git on Googleplex
Posted on June, 6 at 4:39 pm | Filed Under CM
Linus gave a 1 hour google tech talk on git.
