About related pages on WWW

Several WWW pages are briefly described here:

• Team Development Overview by Alex Lobba
• How to Select the Right Team Development Product by Alex Lobba
• PC-Based Version Control by Alex Lobba

Team Development Overview

In this document (from 17.5.1996) Lobba presents a brief overview of team development, the evolution of this industry, and the trends that are going to shape the next generation of products. He advocates that team development is no longer just Version Control and Software Configuration Management.

His team development solution should:

• track changes to all project components
• support parallel development (branches, differences, merges, distributed teams)
• control the entire project and its evolution in time (releases and variants)
• manage the approval of changes (promotion process)
• manage builds and dependencies

Lobba classifies VC and SCM tools in terms of underlying architecture (file based, project repository based, file transparency based) and methodological orientation (flexibility - for software engineers, control - for management).

In the last part of document the building blocks of functionality that should comprise team development solutions are discussed:

• version control
• workspace and release management
• build management
• process management
• user interfaces
• architecture
• integrations and tool interfaces

Copy of this document is also available.

to Homepage

to SCM

to the Top

How to Select the Right Team Development Product

This document written by Lobba (8.3.1996) is aiming to help organizations make an informed development product evaluation and selection, and have a successful implementation that is hopefully not too painful. The main idea lies in the combination of user acceptance and management support.

Described steps are:

1. Management Support and User Acceptance
2. Determining Requirements
3. Selecting a Product
4. Implementing a Product

The issue is not which product is best, but which one is the best match for you.

Copy of this document is also available.

to Homepage

to SCM

to the Top

PC-Based Version Control

This review written by Lobba (17.5.1996) based on hands-on labs tests is limited to four tools that are PC-based:

• CCC/Manager 3.0.3 (Platinum Technology),
• PVCS version Manager 5.2 (Intersolv),
• Source Integrity 7.1c (MKS) and
• Visual SourceSafe 4.0 (Microsoft).

Topics addressed for each product:

Architecture (file-based or project repository based)

Functional properties

• Tracking changes to files (file types supported and delta mechanisms)
• Controlling projects and their evolution (releases and variants)
• Managing code sharing (between projects and variants)
• Managing parallel development (branching, differences, merging)
• Supporting workareas
• Managing the approval of changes (lifecycles, promotions, security)
• Automating builds and dependencies
• User Interfaces (command line, graphical)

Document concludes with brief review of each product (ideal user profile, pros and cons).

Copy of this document is also available.

to Homepage

to SCM

to the Top