[cvsnt] managing development/testing/release process

Arthur Barrett arthur.barrett at march-hare.com
Wed Jan 18 05:33:16 GMT 2006


Community technical support mailing list was retired 2010 and replaced with a professional technical support team. For assistance please contact: Pre-sales Technical support via email to sales@march-hare.com.


Mark,

The following questions probably should have been sent to sales...  

>I have considered this, but spending $150 on a book seems like a lot. 

$0 for one of the best SCM engines available seems like too little ;).  

And $149 per annum per user for DevTrack is OK?  

Hmmm...

>What versions are used in the suite?  

See the FAQ:
http://march-hare.com/cvspro/faq/faq9.asp#9cz
and
http://march-hare.com/cvspro/faq/faq9.asp#9r

>others are using the above listed client?  

You can certainly install the Suite on one workstation and use the open source server, and use open source clients on other workstations.

However a few weeks of using the Suite tools like WM and I think you'll be ready to switch (particularly 2.5.03 which has some big new features - due any day - honest...).

>I know the supported defect tracking software is bugzilla, 
>but have you ever integrated CVSNT with DevTrack?

There are very very many defect tracking tools out there and currently we've only ported to Bugzilla.  If you had a Level 2 contract then a port to DevTrack should be possible, I see they have an open interface "VersionLink".  Our support contracts for small teams is around $30 per user per month.  Timeframe for the "VersionLink" interface would depend on a few other factors.

If DevTrack can accept a bug report/amendment to a bug report by e-mail then it may be possible to configure the e-mail plugin to send the appropriate info.  An amendment to the bug tracking plugin for generic e-mail based systems is planned but not yet allocated.

>I completely agree as long as the available tool set is kept in mind.

I disagree, see below.
 
>If I design a perfect
>process, which entails acquiring a specific tool which I know my
>company will not allow, it does me no good.

In my opinion it does you a lot of good.  You now realise that you have to compromise on your expectations (ie: redefine success).

Without this conscious acknowledgement that the expectations are altered there are various people on the team (including in management) that will label the final result a failure due to these unmet expectations.

I've done this before ;) and the result varies wildly, some companies alter their expectation - others alter their budget.  If the director of sales has a stake in the decision and it's his/her expectation that is not going to be met due to budget constraints - expect budget to change.

Finally removing the limitation of the "available tool set" allows you to focus on the business problem.  The business problem may be solvable in the "available tool set" - but until you realise that success depends on it you'll tend not to look for that feature in the product.

This can lead you to ask a trainer such as March Hare Software or a list such as this one "business problem A is a key success criteria for us, how can I resolve that in product Z?".  

This is a big driver of people moving to CVSNT from CVS (and from SVN).  Very generally speaking CVSNT can support a larger variety of business processes than CVS or SVN can.

Regards,



Arthur Barrett









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