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I know there are some questions already regarding Plastic SCM, but they are over a year old. Has anyone used Plastic SCM lately? What do you think about it.
I have used git, and I am currently using Hg. I love the Hg source control, but Visual Studio integration is not great, and related task/project management tools have not been great. Plastic SCM was recommended, but I like to get a community view on it. - And no, I don't care about grammar on the website. I prefer well engineered solutions to well marketed websites.
Yes, we use Plastic SCM (small team of 5) for 2 years already and it works great and even gets better every update!
Support is very good (within an hour or at least the same day a response!).
Also branching and merging works very good in practice. Every programmer can work on it's own in his own branch (using branch per task pattern). Such a big relief. When you switch to another branch all changes are automatically shelved/stored on the server. When you switch back, the changes are reloaded, which is a really nice feature! You don't have to worry to loose changes, because Plastic handles everything very good.
Without doubt Plastic SCM is the best Version Control System I've ever seen (used MS Sourcesafe, CVS, SVN, StarTeam). Also heard of other's the branch support is much better than MS Team Foundation.
We have used Plastic SCM for a few years already and it has evolved a lot. The integration with Visual Studio is pretty good, you have all the graphical views of their visual client inside VS.
The biggest challenge was the switch to the branch per task thing, kind of a best practice to use it. But now when we have to use SVN for a project, we miss our task branches.
we use Plastic SCM allready for over two years. it's probably the best product for doing SCM. Having used PVCS, Subversion and ClearCase in the past. I definitely recommend using the branch per task approach used in Plastic. It makes your integration work so easy.
Using scrum or another extreem programming process, plastic enables you to control the code in a very easy way.
Plastic is also evolving very fast and has a very strong technical team behind its development.
I made some investigation, in 2010, for my company considering PlasticSCM as option. I found some places to improvement which was critical for our company. I made this being in touch with really fantastic, extraordinary and responsive Plastic SCM Support Team.
The problem is missing triggers for push/pull operations. Also internal/external API is not done yet (but You can find some examples of plugins available at PlasticSCM's forum). Without hooks working on central server there is no way to use Plastic SCM in distributed scenario at our company. That is why we choose Git.
Second thing is not missing, but not released support for PostgreSQL. I red on forum You can ask about such ability - and PlasticSCM posses such code somewhere.
PlasticSCM contain so many functions available as plugin and so rich GUI that You want to implement something more "inside". But we still wait for some API to released. I can't wait this.
There is also no floating/enterprise licences and current, "per user", licence model is very expensive. Of course You can contact with sales :)
I have been using plastic now for about 3 years. It simply is the best Version Control Software out there. Excellent support and responsive feedback. Now it integrates with Git also. Excellent UI and all commandline capable as well. Xlinks are a very cool feature and now you can have writeable XLinks.
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I'm a relatively new developer (two years experience, coming from an apprenticeship) and in my workplace we've only ever had one developer working on a project at a time.
We keep our projects in Microsoft Visual Source Safe and check out files as required, and checking back in when we're done.
However, I've been doing some thinking lately and I'm unsure how we'd work on the same project at the same time? Almost everything has dependencies on some core code and certain base classes. Is there anywhere I can go to read up on concurrent development, or are there any 'techniques' I should be researching?
How do team work on projects together? For background information I'm a .NET developer working mostly with VB.NET and webforms, but am moving onto C# MVC.
Edit
I think what I'm really asking here is about the techniques that should be employed as opposed to the software. I've been tinkering with Git a little and can see the benefits of the system over VSS. I was looking more for help with techniques on a project level that can be employed with concurrent development;
Should the development of two sections be completed then merged, or should it be more closely worked on together?
Are there any proven techniques or best practices when it comes to reviewing changes or discussing the next move?
Are there any books or articles I can read on how to produce a project as a team more efficiently etc?
Given you are using a Microsoft Stack, does it not make more sense to update yourself and use TFSOnline as an example. Its far better than its predecessor and everything is fully integrated into your toolset (assuming you use Visual Studio). There are loads of tools out there but everything I use is free inside a MSDN subscription and it plays nicely together. I am not saying others aren't ahead of the game but it makes more sense given what you are doing. Was very surprised to see SourceSafe stil being used.
I never used Visual Source Safe, but most chances are a different source control tool called Git (http://git-scm.com/) will make the concurrency better.
As the project will grow, you will probably have less collisions - just because there are more files to work on.
Try to push back the code more often. No more than 1/day - and hopefully sooner.
Use some kind of SCM(source code management) Wiki,
You can use some kind of program to help you, today the most popular program to this is GIT Wiki Git, but have many others. Do some research and find out what is better for you.
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What is a best way to organize many software development projects, interaction with clients, project documentation, sources, emails, knowledge, time tracking, issue and features tracking, support for releases and versions etc. for a small company?
For me (and I believe for many others) it is obvious that it must be some sort of web-based solutions. It would be great if it could provide an interface for iPhone (if not, it is also OK).
Important thing: it must be hosted on our servers, so PHP + MySQL is the best platform so far.
I have found the following system to consider:
http://www.activecollab.com/ (but I didn't found issue tracking as well as support for releases and versions, so it is not the best match for software development company)
http://www.mantisbt.org/ (Great tool, but no project planing...)
http://www.twproject.com/ (didn't try yet, but it has very strange interface)
But none of them is a 100% solution for me.
It also should (but not must) support SCRUM
We have about 25 people in our team and about 50 from client side. At once we run about 3-7 projects (some in dev. phase, some in support).
So, my questions: does anybody knows any good web-based system that gives everything software development company needs? I believe this information will be useful for many of us.
I would recommend FogBugz
They have a very interesting (admittedly not everyone's cup of tea) scheduling system and is apparently supporting scrum.
Their support for release management is something i'm particularly fond of, but i should also say that i have very little experience of other similar systems.
Another feature that I like is the ability to link different e-mail accounts as well as pure HTML forms to different projects.
Oh, and it is not a MySQL/PHP solution.
Some of the features are:
Issue tracking
Project planning
Scheduling
Customer support
Wiki
References:
Scrum and Fogbugz / Fogbugz questions / FogBugz Knowledge Exchange
I think it really depends on your company size. I used activecollab for a while but it never really convinced me and then they made it commercial anyway. There is an open source fork of it called ProjectPier.
Even if it is not MySQL + PHP but Ruby On Rails Redmine convinced me the most from all tools I tried (and installing the ruby module into apache is a question of 5 minutes). It is simpel and yet has anything I need (including Eclipse Mylyn, SCM integration, E-Mail Notification and time tracking). With a little RoR knowledge it is easily customizable, too.
The most popular Open Source sollution is probably Trac. It is written in Python, so it is not a PHP either.
But maybe it makes sense to consider a non PHP sollution. I didn't find any PHP open source tool that had the functionality and simplicity of Redmine or Trac. If you don't mind a hosted sollution Basecamp is probably the first address to turn to (never tried it though).
Trac with Agilo plugin might be a good option.
Here is link for Trac pluigns, some category are:
Code Documentation
User feedback and discussions
For another pespective - having used many of the above solutions, and liking them very much for bug tracking, wiki documentation and tracking information - I tend to move towards keeping much of my project "meta-data" (summary information pulling together wiki, bugs, schedules, communication) in spreadsheets now.
For those now climbing onto the top rope of the ring preparing for a takedown, here's why... I come from a programming background, and one of the best books I read early in my career was The Pragmatic Programmer. One of the tenets they preach is finding a fundamental editor that you like, and get good with it (for various Very Good Reasons). After trying (frustratingly) to port and adapt my PM/Dev Management approach multiple times to multiple systems, I've extrapolated that Pragmatic tooling philosophy to the product/project management world I now inhabit. To stretch the metaphor, my editor is now Excel.
I can't guarantee that for any company I work with, they have "Software Project Management xyz" or "Bug Tracking System abc" with the proper plugins - but I can be darn well sure they have Excel or some variant available. I know if I get ninja-like with that tool, I can continue to use it - and focus on the project, not the tools.
This spreadsheet approach comes with some caveats:
Excel done poorly can suck. We've all seen that. Watch for bloat and stupidity.
Keep the bugs in the bug tracking system, the wiki stuff in the wiki. The spreadsheet is meant to pull this stuff together, not replace it.
Keep it readable. Don't stuff everything in just because you can. Summary sheets are good.
Try to standardize your templates and macros meaningfully for tasks and information, to maximize reuse over time and projects. Just like good programming.
Back it up - use a document management system if you can. This approach isn't in the cloud or hosted centrally by default, so be aware of that.
Have you tried Assembla? They've recently released a new product called Portfolio which is great if you have to manage multiple projects + you get free clients! :)
You might like to consider http://targetprocess.com/ We use that in my current job and it works pretty well, from a developer point of view. I'm unsure as to whether it supports your installation requirements, however.
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Is Microsoft Project the best tool for managing software development or IT projects or is there an alternative that is better?
Project is not good for managing development at all. I find it marginally useful for scheduling / work breakdown.
If you're on a Microsoft stack, Team Foundation Server is a good project management solution. It integrates with Project for scheduling and also provides the essentials of source control, work item (task / defect) tracking, and document management (via sharepoint.) The 2008 version has matured nicely, and the 2010 version looks very promising, especially in the area of requirements specification and traceability.
You can replicate the TFS features with a stack of open source and/or less expensive off-the-shelf software, but it is more work to integrate. It's debatable which is more flexible and easier to maintain once set up.
The following are required, regardless of platform:
Bug tracking
Work item / story / progress tracking of some kind (may be managed by above)
Collective team discussion (may be managed by above - discussion on work items, like FogBugz for example)
Source control (anything but SourceSafe)
Continuous build integration that runs unit tests
Instant messaging (OpenFire works great if your network blocks external services)
Document library
Farm of virtualized test machines (especially useful for install/upgrade testing)
I tend to use MSProject for capacity planning - a nice big broad brush of who could do what over a period, at a level of abstraction that makes it easy to rejig plans. For day to day tracking of the real work, I use Fogbugz. I think of it as MSProject/Gantty stuff for the strategic planning, and Fogbugz for the tactical management and planning.
Depends on the process you're using - if it's a waterfall like process, or there's a lot of non-software parts of the project (infrasstructure, manufacturing, marketing etc) then Project's OK for the overall task management - it's certainly competitive with other similar tools.
I don't think any of the "project management" tools (tasks, WBS, gannt charts etc) are much good at the management of the detailed tasks that happen when you're into the main software development phase - I usually end up in Excel for the projects I'm involved in.
And of course, there is much more to the successful management of a non-trivial software project than the bit that can be managed with a tool like Project. It doesn't help much with managing the requirements, issues, defects, meetings, test development etc - but then it's not supposed to.
Because of these limitations, I find I usually get most value out of Project in the planning phase - working out the task breakdown, what needs to be done, and roughly what needs to happen in what order.
As Eisenhower put it: "In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." MS Project is a useful tool for planning.
If also need a free and open alternative to Project, you have OpenProj: http://openproj.org/openproj
We use Target Process here. It has a few "-isms", but overall is a good agile project management tool
We've been successfully using MS Project for planning but were missing the ability to share MS Project plans with customers and colleagues who don't have it installed. This led us to the idea of online Microsoft Project viewer - a service that would allow to view and share MS Project files (.mpp) online, apart from MS Project:
Hope this helps.
We use Acunote at my work place, but we follow a Agile/Scrum methodology.
What constitutes the "best tool" depends on many things. How you run your projects, who will be using them, etc.
There are many better alternatives, at least for software development. One such is embedded in Microsoft Visual Studio Team System. You may also want to check out tools from Rally Software and Version One. The latter are well suited to agile methods, while the former supports both agile and traditional CMM methods.
Well, given the fact that not even the Project team uses Project for Project (Source: Joel Spolsky), I would not want to use it for development.
I track my development tasks in our Bug Tracker, and the Project File just has something like "Planning 1 Week, Development 5 Weeks, QA 3 Weeks, Deployment 1 Week", aka. a VERY broad overview.
As for the BugTracker, FogBugz has this nice Estimate-Tracking that I find quite useful for making schedules, which is for me just another reason to not use Project.
But then again, I am not a Project Manager, so to me, Project is just an unnecessary complex, not really multi-user friendly and somewhat dated-feeling Tool to be used when building Houses, Highways or Space Stations, but not for Software.
We use Primavera on my project. Its supposed to be great although its the only tool I haven't really used for project management so far so I can't really compare it to anything else. Its not that easy to pick up but it can do everything I need (and apparently much more).
My favourite feature is the built in timesheets functionality which means my developers can book their hours to their tasks at the end of the week meaning that I don't need to constantly bug them about how they are progressing against their plans.
personally i dont believe ms project is good for software dev (i have used it, im not bashing it to be a purist)
its great if you are building a house or something which doesnt have such uncontrollable variables (e.g. how many bugs will you have? how long will bugs take to fix? how much feature-creep will there be?)
i like to keep my schedules very simple so more people can understand them, hence why i just use a google spreadsheet
the structure i use is described further here: Project Schedules with Google Spreadsheets
hope this helps
--LM
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So, at my current job we're usually 1-3 developers, 1-2 art directors and 1 project manager on each project, with the smallest ones just being one of each and the larger ones being three developers and two art directors.
I'm looking for a software, combination of softwares or some type of service that will allow us to manage our projects individually, it's important that we're able to manage several projects at once within one system/piece of software (without going through a too complicated setup process for each project) since we usually have 2-3 ongoing projects in parallel.
We need to be able to integrate with SVN, Track bugs/features/request, Put up milestones and some type of agile management a´la SCRUM would be nice.
Preferably it should be able to run on Windows (without to much hassle, ever tried to put up Apache+Python+Svn+Trac on the same Windows 2003 server and get them all to run together? not fun.) since we mostly do .NET development and most of our servers run Windows 2003.
Since you seem to have a maximum of six people working in a single room - I'd give serious consideration to not using software at all.
A whiteboard & cork board for each project, plus a whole lot of index cards / stickies can go a long, long way towards meeting the project management needs of one or two small projects.
(Failing that - I've found basecamp a fairly lightweight tool for small projects - although it doesn't do any sort of source control integration. I've also heard good things about the latest FogBugz - but I've had such bad personal experiences of earlier versions I've not tried it yet myself)
http://www.project-open.org/ covers your requirements and is available for Windows. However it is targeted at larger organizations (>20 employees), so that you might find it overkill for a group of 6.
I personally use BaseCamp for my company and have had great luck with it!
Edit oops, I didn't notice the SVN requirement, BaseCamp can help with the other stuff.
You might want to try out Mantis (www.mantisbt.org). It is a little cumbersome at first, but with a little bit of customization, it will work for you. It has SVN integration, and a bunch of other stuff which I haven't used yet... :|... such as Mobile support, Wiki support, etc.
And it's OSS (Open Source Software). Written in PHP, works with MySQL, or PostgreSQL. Just check it out, it's good.
http://www.mantisbt.org/
Atlassian's Jira Studio sounds like exactly what you need. It's hosted, so there's nothing to install.
If you want something that is quick and easy to work with that integrates well with Windows I would suggest Microsoft Office Groove. I have been using it on my current project and it also easily allows you to start new projects and add members.
It is not the best solution in the world, but it is included with Office '07 and it has tools to help with project management, bug reporting, calendar, meeting summaries, etc.
The one major problem I have found with it is that version control is not included by default. From what I understand you have to setup a SharePoint server to have version control in Groove, but I have not done this yet and have been hoping that my backups will work fine.
+1 for starting out with a whiteboard, stickies and whatever other office supplies you can think of. Being able to visualize the state of your project in a big visible wall can be really useful, more so than software-based tracking, IMHO.
You need to make sure the team is committed to keeping it up-to-date, though.
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We have MS Sharepoint -- which isn't all bad for managing a task list. The data's publicly available, people are notified of changes and assignments.
I think that Bugzilla might be a little easier for management and reporting purposes. While there are some nice Open Source Scrum management tools, I've used up a lot of my political capital and can't ask for too much more than what we've got now. Money isn't the object -- obviously -- it's the idea that my team has too many specialized tools.
Will Bugzilla work out as a more general project management tool -- outside the bug fix use cases?
Will I be bitterly disappointed and wish I'd downloaded something else and made my case for a better project management tool?
Bugzilla Is a great bug tracking system. We have tried to use it for other project management tasks and the results are less then stellar. I would recommend finding something designed with your goals in mind.
Try it for yourself.
Get a $15/month account at wush.net and use it yourself for a while (no business relationship besides satisfied customer).
Bugzilla is powerful and has a lot of configuration options, which can be confusing.
I personally used it three years ago on a project I was working on. I had no project manager and I was the developer, so I needed a very-light-overhead systtem. Bugzilla gave me that. I put my main goal as an enhancement "productionalized system" and then I made dependencies to reach that point. I ended up having 160 nodes all dependent on each other. This essentially was a work breakdown structure. I didn't bother with time estimates, and I didn't bother with creating any other kind of project documentation.
A cool advantage was that as I coded, if I noticed something needed to be done, I would just pop it into bugzilla (20 second process once it's set up), tie it as a dependency, and go back to what I was doing.
Whenever I completed a task, I would look at the dependency diagram and find the outermost leaves (bugs that blocked other but weren't themselves blocked), and work at it.
The advantage of this method for me is that if a task had looked simple and had one node associated with it, but when doing the thing itself I realized it was more complex, I would just split it into different subtasks. This took only a minute and absolutely didn't involve a meeting with a project manager.
Other people on the team could track my progress by looking at open bugs, closed bugs sorted by dates, etc. They saw action, they left me alone. When I had external dependecies, I would make a bug, detail the work, and send that person a link via email. They could then see why this was needed by looking at the dependency diagram.
Note that unless previously agreed upon, I did not assign them the bug.
It worked really well and the system was ready one month early.
How will it work with SCRUM? Having only had a cursory glance at scrum I can't tell you. But that was my experience.
Using a dedicated host will allow you three things:
support
easy upgrades (unless you got gurus in-house, bugzilla management ain't easy--for me at least)
users across organizational boundaries.
Note that bugzilla has all sorts of security features, so it's easy to lock-down the users to what they need to see.
My stand-alone solution is DokuWiki + MantisBT + Subversion + Review Board, which can be integrated with relative ease. Hosted alternative is Bitbucket.org. The rationale is you write user stories on Wiki and can reference them specific tasks. Larger bugs can be collaboratively designed and the "wiki" link is provided on the bug report by Mantis. Review board lets you do peer code reviews against svn diff before change is committed.
We've used Trac and Subversion very successfully for several projects.
The main advantage here is being able to tailor reports, some very Scrum specific, to provide information to management.