UCM criticisms?

[Stephen Leake]

Dwain Wilder <dwain@bearmeadow.com> writes:
I have a client who is thinking about using Clearcase/UCM without its ClearQuest integration.

Do they say why?
I suspect this is a bad idea, but don't have personal experience of its being done.

ClearQuest provides management of change requests. if the client has a
different way to do that, it's fine.

I found the ClearQuest/ClearCase integration to mostly get in the way
of getting work done. But that was partly because ClearQuest was set
up to not allow me to assign activities to myself, and partly because
the whole thing is deadly slow.
I also _suspect_ that the UCM methodology may not be adequate in general for their parallel development scheme. UCM seems to put all project activity on one branch, for instance.

No; they recommend one branch (they call them "streams") per activity.
This seems accident prone, in a general way.

It would be.

--
-- Stephe

[Stephen Leake]

"Frank Schophuizen" <fs5628@hotmailnospam.com> writes:
I also _suspect_ that the UCM methodology may not be adequate in general for their parallel development scheme. UCM seems to put all project activity on one branch, for instance. No; they recommend one branch (they call them "streams") per activity. Not really. UCM defines one development stream per developer, not per activity.

Yes, you are correct (we aren't using it right, anyway, so I
remembered wrong).
Within a development stream you can work on many activities, either simultaneously (which can be quite confusing for a developer and hardly manageable for a project manager, and also creates inter-dependencies between activities) or sequencially.

That's why I think in general one branch/stream per activity is a better
idea. If I happen to be working on two unrelated activities, why
should they be in the same stream?

--
-- Stephe

[Dwain Wilder]

Thanks, Frank. With respect to what you say below, if I have three bug-fix
assignments on the current engineering team, then the work gets done in one
stream? How to I integrate one fix before I fix them all? How to I fix more than
one bug in a single file?

Dwain

Frank Schophuizen wrote:I also _suspect_ that the UCM methodology may not be adequate ingeneral for their parallel development scheme. UCM seems to put allproject activity on one branch, for instance.No; they recommend one branch (they call them "streams") per activity. Not really. UCM defines one development stream per developer, not per activity. Within a development stream you can work on many activities, either simultaneously (which can be quite confusing for a developer and hardly manageable for a project manager, and also creates inter-dependencies between activities) or sequencially. Frank.


--
Dwain Wilder
Bear Meadow Folk Instruments
http://www.bearmeadow.com
_______________________________
You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your
intuition. You can't get there by bus, only by hard work and risk and by not
quite knowing what you're doing.

- Alan Alda

[Frank Schophuizen]

"Dwain Wilder" <dwain@bearmeadow.com> wrote: Thanks, Frank. With respect to what you say below, if I have three bug-fix assignments on the current engineering team, then the work gets done in
one stream? How to I integrate one fix before I fix them all? How to I fix
more than one bug in a single file?

There are many different scenarios (within the UCM model):
1. Solve bug1 first and deliver it into the integration stream, then bug2,
etc.
2. Solve a number of bugs (e.g. bug1, bug2 and bug3) and deliver it, then
another set of bugs, etc.
3. Have one developer solve a number of bugs, another developer solve a
number of other bugs, etc.
4. Have a developer join the project multiple times

And if you need to work on a single (large) change with multiple developers
that need pre-integration before being put in the integration stream, use
sub-development streams.

Or you may consider having multiple developers work on the same development
stream (call it an "activity stream" or "feature stream" if you like) or
even on the same development view. UCM supports it, but the more work you
combine in a single stream the more you will have to face
interference/dependencies of work or people. And the more interdependencies
you have, the more difficult it is to manage it.

Frank