Archive for category CMCrossroads
Which SCM tool?
Posted by Mark in Business Cases, CMCrossroads, General, Plain Old Blog, Process on September 8, 2010
This is one of the most common questions asked on the CMCrossroads forums, and perhaps one of the most pointless. The question is variously stated as, “which is the best tool?”, “is tool X better than tool Y?”, or “we are looking for the best tool to X”. All such questions are equally vacuous. The [...]
Toward a CM Ontology
Posted by Mark in CMCrossroads, Configuration Management, Information Management, SCM Tool, Software Configuration Management on May 22, 2010
As I suggested in a previous post, I think the future of CM (and most especially SCM) lies substantially with the semantic web. My reasoning is simple; CM is about information management and this information needs to be shared, controlled and updated across increasingly more diverse organisations and systems. To provide this facility we need [...]
Absence, CM Tool, identities, and some thoughts on the future of CM
Posted by Mark in CMCrossroads, Configuration Management, ITSLM, Plain Old Blog, SCM Tool on April 7, 2010
Some of you may have noticed a bit of an hiatus in my posts. I’ve been a bit under the weather, feeling lethargic and run down, and not in a good frame of mind for writing. Lucky you, I am in the mood now. Remember a few posts back I mentioned working on a CMS [...]
Revision histories with more than one root
Posted by Mark in CMCrossroads, Plain Old Blog on March 18, 2010
Most of the time when we deal with revision history we are dealing with a directed acyclic graph with a single root. Most item revision histories develop from a single starting revision, as illustrated below. If two items belonging to different revision histories are combined we produce a graph with more than one root, as [...]
Items have history
Posted by Mark in CMCrossroads, Configuration Management, Plain Old Blog, SCM Tool, Software Configuration Management, Version Control on March 17, 2010
As those of you who have been following this blog for any time will know I am currently looking in some detail at parallel development, specifically how it can be managed safely by non-expert version managers. I have used parallel development with much success on many projects but codifying my knowledge into a tool is [...]
Preventing ticket ping-pong
Posted by Mark in CMCrossroads, Plain Old Blog, Process, Tools 'n' Tips on February 27, 2010
This is the first opportunity I have had for a while to put something on this blog — busy, busy, busy. (I can tell you that I am building up a fairly sizeable backlog of articles on parallel development and I will, I promise, get round to publishing them soon.) In the meanwhile, here’s a [...]
In the beginning…
Posted by Mark in CMCrossroads, Parallel Development Principles, Plain Old Blog, SCM Tool on February 18, 2010
…was the definition. In this article I am going to lay out my definitions for some terminology that will become increasingly important as I develop my CMS model. The terms I will be discussing are as follows. Stream Branch Configuration Item Revision Configuration Component Repository Configuration Management Database Record At this point I caution the [...]
Fences and Ambulances
Posted by Mark in CMCrossroads, Plain Old Blog, Process, Tools 'n' Tips on February 17, 2010
Suppose you are in charge of a cliff edge. Your task is to maintain the views from the cliff, but keep visitors safe. You can construct a fences along the top of the cliff, to stop people falling over, or you can place ambulances at the foot of the cliff, to clear up once someone [...]
CMS Tool: High-level architecture
Posted by Mark in CMCrossroads, Plain Old Blog, SCM Tool, Software Configuration Management on February 11, 2010
Continuing my musings about a universal configuration management tool I’ve drafted the basic architecture. This is summarised in the following diagram (after the break).
Who’s afraid of the big bad merge?
Posted by Mark in CMCrossroads, Parallel Development Principles, Plain Old Blog, Software Configuration Management, Version Control on February 1, 2010
A common objection to using parallel development is the fear of the inevitable merging required to reintegrate the changes as the development proceeds. In this post I will take a look at some of the issues that arise from managing parallel development and, perhaps more importantly, provide some guidance on how to avoid the pitfalls [...]
