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Closed 10 years ago.
We use MKS Integrity for our source control. I have no control over that -- I just have to use it.
What are some "gotchas" that I should know about and avoid? And, are there any neat things about the software that will allow me to use it better?
I've already hit cases where the tree structure in the source control doesn't match that in my sandbox. In more than one case, a file exists in two places, and when I resynchronize, I get the current version, and then an older version overwrites it, and then it is no longer synchronized. It's a challenge to find the older file, since, of course, the tree structure doesn't match.
I have used Source Control since 1999. It's pretty reliable, we have never lost change history. We don't do anything fancy with branches so I can't answer your question.
I assume you did resynchronize (F6) and update to head (F7).
SI is built upon a command-line design. You might have more consistent results if you use the command-line versions (pj.exe etc). The documentation is not trivial.
We're trying to migrate to Subversion, because MKS want ridiculous money for their latest enterprisey version.
Just discovered this MKS gotcha: It only allows one revision of a member to have a specific label on it at a time.
Came across it this way:
Someone on our team renamed a pdf resource, adding _Old to the file name (he did this rather than dropping it because he wanted it to still be part of our deployments)
Then he added the new version of the pdf, adding it to the same archive so that it connects to the existing revision history graph.
Now, if you look at the revision history for that member, you'll find that there are two revisions of the same member being used by the same dev path.
As part of our deployment process, we checkpoint the artifacts that are being deployed, applying labels to members to specify the release that they're a part of.
Since MKS only applies a label to one revision, when I went to review the checkpoint, it looked like the new pdf was not included in our deployment because it was missing the label
Also, AVOID VISUAL STUDIO INTEGRATION!!! Since installing it, several members of my team have had to wrestle with frequent visual studio crashes, and apparently its branching mechanisms depend on features that have no equivalent within the integrity command line or gui client. So if anyone on your team uses visual studio integration, unless the branches they work in were created through the integration, they will not work. So you'll find yourself stuck doing things in visual studio that visual studio does slowly and poorly just so that the team members using the integration can work with it.
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Closed 10 years ago.
I'm a bit confused about a pull request I did on a fairly large open source project I use in my work. I won't reveal the project, but it contains a large collection of mostly user submitted scripts that are used to monitor various aspects of a mission critical system or application. I found a user-submitted shell script that I needed to use for my own work, but it had several major bugs, and was stylistically a wreck. I fixed the bugs, and refactored almost the entire script, bringing it up to a fairly clean "bash form". I did a pull request on the script, and the project lead rejected the patch with quote:
"This is mostly coding style changes. Your effort is really
appreciated, but we won't get anywhere if we start accepting that kind
of patches. Please try to focus on the matter, i.e. stuff which really
needs fixing. Thanks!"
Here's an example of a bash coding style change for readability I made throughout the script:
- start_time=`date +%s%N`
+ start_time=$(date +%s%N)
Is this common on open source projects? Most projects I've committed to were my own, and I refactor stylistically bad code all the time. If code will be used by other people like the script in question, shouldn't a usability refactor be welcomed? I'm just a bit confused, as the project has no coding style guides.
Did you split the patches so that the bugs are fixed first and the style changes made later? If not, I'd reject the patch as well. A patch that changes logic should be as small and self-contained as possible. Nobody wants to go through dozens of style changes to ensure they have no effect on the logic when trying to understand what you fixed.
This is absolutely not a universal thing among open-source projects. I'll just give one counterexample, from a recent pull request:
https://github.com/djcb/mu/pull/65
My pull request related to the Emacs component of mu, called mu4e. My only changes were to make many more variables from the project available to edit via M-x customize (the Emacs equivalent of "Edit -> Preferences", or "Tools -> Options"). There were no changes to any of the program logic at all. As you can see, the pull request was merged without any fuss after just two hours. (I had never contributed to this project before, so I didn't get fast-tracked based on my past contributions or anything like that.) So that's one example of a pull request of only cosmetic changes that got happily accepted without any complaint.
As to why the project in question rejected your patch, maybe they're just being stubborn or too proud to let someone else mess around in their code or something like that, but on the other hand, there are valid reasons not to merge cosmetic non-user-facing changes. If they accept your code and they are at least minimally responsible, they will have to at least look at all the changes you're making and make sure you didn't break something, and make sure that your code changes match what your commit log says that you changed. I'm guessing that your pull request changed a whole bunch of isolated lines or blocks throughout many files, right? That's probably what you'd end up with if you did a blanket search and replace of backticks with $(). That kind of patch can be hard to verify, because you look at the same change on line after line and your eyes glaze over and you miss the one case where the close-paren is missing which causes the entire project to break.
The point is that even though you're giving them code for free, actually merging your code is not free, and the work involved in integrating your code into the project must be done by the people who run the project, or else they will be merging code that they can't trust. In some cases, the people who own the project may look at what your changes claim to improve and make the rational decision that those improvements do not justify the effort required to merge your code in a responsible way. If you disagree, you're free to create your own fork (not a "hostile" fork, just a run-of-the-mill "Project X with my customizations" fork) and put your changes there, and use them yourself. If your changes are really worth having, people might start switching to your fork, at which point the original developers might reconsider their position and merge your changes after all.
Each project has its own rules and guidelines. You've been told that this project works to different rules from the ones you'd work to. If you want to contribute, it sounds like you'll have to follow their rules. (I tend to be on your side in the debate — but when I'm not in charge, I go by the rules of those who are!)
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Do you need a project management system if you work alone? I mean a project management system that includes issue tracking, wiki, etc.
Currently I keep my issues in a very good organizer software and I keep project documentation in Word files (and of course I have a version control system), so I am not really sure if I need a project management software, because I work alone.
One useful thing, I can think of, that project management system can additionally give me is linking issues with commits (UPDATE: I've found this feature useful enough: for example, right now I am creating documentation for the new release of my project and I consequently open every issue with "Pending for release" status, then I read the issue's description and then I can quickly view the diff of the commit for this issue - this helps me to see details and write better documentation).
Another one - sharing issues so your users or your employer can view or manage them.
What am I missing? Is project management software necessary when working as the only programmer?
UPDATE: I've thought up another useful thing: In comments we can give a link to an issue or a wiki article with detailed information about the code being commented.
You say you use some organizer software that helps you managing issues. So you already have your custom project management system. Just keep it.
Project management systems does not have to be big, support sharing data or other kinds of documentation. As a programmer you are supposed to use one to make your work organized, but it doesn't matter which one. You can happily use plain text files if they work for you.
Still, if there is even a slight chance that you'll be cooperating with someone, you should try something that allows cooperation... just to know how they work.
Do you need a project management system if you work alone?
Yes.
Currently I keep my issues in a very good organizer software and I keep project documentation in Word files (and of course I have a version control system).
See. You have a project management system. Why ask?
project management system can additionally give me is linking issues with commits.
That's not necessarily project management. You can easily do that with you version control software.
Read this: http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/issuetrackers.html
sharing issues so your users or your employer can view or manage them.
That means you're not working alone, if you're sharing something. What are you asking for here? How to share?
When working alone is the key thought to pursue here. When you are alone, you don't have the luxury of having someone else to keep you on your toes. A good "system" is essential therefore in order to help you manage your projects. As to which system to employ, that all comes down to your individual needs, and how much time you want to spend maintaining such a system.
If there is any possibility that you will need to involve someone else, then you need to decide if the system you use will scale to meet your changing requirements. This is also true if you continue to work alone and your workload changes.
As for software, that is almost another question entirely. I personally prefer to use a software tool to track all of my tasks, and to help me to collate data that helps me to determine priorities and task scheduling. That is in a nutshell what project management is all about. When working at home on my own projects, I use a simple Redmine configuration to manage different types of projects. Planning for programming projects, working out the logistics for my wedding, even managing my house renovations. All have been added to my private Redmine setup because I'm too lazy to try and keep paper-diary styled systems updated. At work, I have a more complex configuration to manage the myriad of programming projects we have here, and to manage the dependencies between them.
I've found though, that the most important thing is to ensure that the processes are streamlined, and that the supporting tool can be configured to match the processes. You don't want to have to change your processes because the tool isn't up to par. Also, the tool should not become the sole focus of all of your efforts, therefore it should be configured to reduce the "red-tape" side of things. You only want to capture enough information to describe your tasks, and to determine when they need to be done, who will do them, and when they are completed. Yes, your needs may require more information to be captured, but always try to minimise this, as you don't want to feel like you are always updating your project management tool when you'd rather be working on that latest killer algorithm you've been looking forward to doing! ;-)
I would not want to work without a system like trac anymore, even if I'm the only one working on the project. You should use a version control system of course, no question about that. Then there are two or three things coming up, you also mentioned.
First is documentation. There are lots of different possibilities and a wiki is just one of it. I personally use the wiki mostly for ideas, thoughts and notes. It's easy to put drawings in it, link to ressources in the web and really quickly edit. This can not replace in code documentation you do with source comments or tools like doxygen. And this can also not replace a manual, if the project requires one.
The second thing you'll come across is some kind of todos, let it be bug reports (even from yourself), feature requests, things like that. You can put them as comments in your code or use a list in a text file or your PIM system, but you can also use a ticket system, just to keep track of what you want to or have to do in the project in the future. You can not do everything just now.
Third is the bigger plan, this is not just atomic todos but things trac calls milestones. This has to be written down somewhere.
The great thing about trac now is, you can integrate all these thing you have to do anyway in one tool and even cross link between all the parts. Link to code lines from a ticket, reference tickets in a commit message, use ressources from your repository in the wiki, automatically build doxygen and integrate it and so on. You must decide if you want to use trac for all the things around your project or something else, but you have these things anyway so why not use a system integrating it all? ;-)
I mean a project management system that includes issue tracking, wiki, etc.
I don't use an Issue Tracker, but I practice continuous (not "big bang") integration, and I test (look for bugs) early and often, and I fix any bugs as soon as I find them, so that list of known Issues remains small.
I also have a lot of structure in the source code (e.g. separate projects/assemblies for separate components), so I try to have "the code is the documentation".
The table at What Types of Documents Should You Create? implies that you may not need documentation (e.g. a wiki), unless you're working with other people: e.g. with a manager, testers, and/or end-users.
You may be the only programmer now but will it stay that way forever? I often work alone on development projects but I still track the "to do" list and issues in a simple Access database. Makes it much easier if you need to expand/hand over a project.
You absolutely do, at least for a bigger projects that take a few months. For the past years I tried :
eclipse notepad plugin - just text file - effective
eclipse mylyn tasks - better, enough for one-man-show, but I was still having issues with migration between eclipse instances
youtrack is free and it's like a JIRA but more simple and practical for an individualist
With notepad I was able to focus on current task, but I wasn't able to maintain long term iterations, because without issue tracker I was loosing discipline, dealing with 3 tasks at the same time, not finishing them, etc.
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Closed 11 years ago.
I'm not sure if this an appropriate question for stack overflow. If not, I apologize.
I was wondering if there is any tool for keeping track of different uncompleted tasks in different modules of a project. I'm currently interning at a company and I feel like everytime something cannot be solved immediately, someone asks me to put a 'todo comment', and that task eventually gets forgotten. I was wondering if there's a better way to keep track of stuff like this.
Thanks.
Trac is an issue tracking system that you can use for this purpose, but you have to enter manually each ticket into the system, but once you're get used to it, it is very useful and effective.
Any issue tracker system also works.
Eclipse will keep track of comments with // TODO in it. There is a "tasks" window which will list them all.
I suggest you to use Post-Its for each Task. You can also use Kanban to manage those tasks. It's very easy to learn and adapt to your needs.
You can split a whiteboard into some sections like Backlog (for pending and new tasks), Work in Progress (you limit the number of possible concurrent tasks), Deliver/Deploy (almost done), Done.
If you want a computer tool, there are lots of them. Just google for Kanban software.
http://www.infoq.com/articles/hiranabe-lean-agile-kanban
Lots if IDEs will keep track of // TODO comments if that's the route you want to take.
To keep track of todo items outside of and IDE, you can try ToDoList
It's free.
Pivotal Tracker looks quite nice as project management tool.
Here's the CodeProject link to AbstractSpoon's ToDo List
It sounds like whichever system you're using at the moment (if you're using one at all) does not make to-do lists a priority or put to-dos/tasks in your view every morning that you log in.
Sounds like you need something that:
Allows you to assign different tasks/to-dos to different modules of a project
Keeps an organized view of which task/to-do has been assigned to which project
Sets alerts for each separate to-do/task (due date, percent completed, etc)
Keeps the tasks/to-dos easily viewable (from the dashboard, or put in a prioritized view as soon as you open a project)
A company that I do contract work with, WORKetc, can do all of this. On top of this, they have a huge amount of other project management features, to name a few:
Collaboration on all aspects of a project
Unlimited sub projects
Gantt charts
Project dependancy
Timesheet/milestone billing
To-dos, tasks, easily assignable to specific people/specific projects/specific sub projects, with necessary alerts
The cool thing about WORKetc is on top of being a project managemement tool, WORKetc also has CRM and billing features. It is essentially a total business management platform and that way if you're using other CRM or billing software you can get rid of it entirely, and not have to worry about integrating seperate projects. Even if you don't use these features, I bet its still a better bargain than the majority of the other ones you'll see!
Pricing/website link: http://www.worketc.com/sign_up
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Closed 9 years ago.
You're in Visual Studio... you press F5 (Run) and are greeted by this dialog:
There were build errors. Would you like to continue and run the last successful build?
Wonderful.
I'm sure there are cases where running the last successful build is useful, however, I have never purposefully answered yes to this question. Oh sure, I've clicked Yes plenty of times, and waiting in frustration for the first opportunity to undo my blunder, but nothing more.
So, have you ever found this feature useful? And if so, under what circumstances did it become helpful for you to be able to run the last successful build of your application?
How often do you accidentally click Yes and kick yourself while waiting for the app to start?
In VS2008 there are the following options you can set to change the behavior (not sure if there are similar options in other versions of Visual Studio):
Projects and Solutions/Build and Run
- On Run, when projects are out of date:
Always build
Never build
Prompt to build <== default setting
- On Run, when build or deployment errors occur:
Launch old version
Do not launch
Prompt to launch <== default setting
Set the above options to "Always build" and "Do not launch" and you get what I consider a more ueseful behavior. Though sometimes when I try to launch the debugger and there's a build error it takes me a few seconds to realize why I'm not getting to the breakpoint I thought I'd be hitting (it might be nice to get some sort of 'toaster' type of message to knock me out of my stupor).
This behaviour can be defined under
Tools->Options->Projects and Solutions->Build And Run->
On Run, when Build or Deployment Errors occur
here you can select:
- Launch old version
- Do not launch
- Ask to launch
This can be useful when you debug a web application and one of the pages does not compile, because some other developer checked in a bad version, or you can't check out the latest code for whatever reason, but you know you will not hit that page. I do it all the times.
Interesting. I've actually never seen that dialog - I know there's an option to enable/disable running the previous successful build, so perhaps it shows a dialog first. You can look into disabling it if you won't use it.
One reason this can be useful, however, is if you want to remind yourself what the bug was that you were working on. Not all things can be fixed in edit-and-continue, and you might need a memory jog.
It's also helpful on web applications, because it will force the cassini servers to start. You need this if you are working on one project in the solution that won't compile, and you need to refresh the web services in another project.
When using VS 2008 Express, there is a box to never show this dialog again. Just tried it and it will take away the dialog, leaving only a build failed message in the bottom left hand portion of the screen.
As for how often do I hit it, quite often. Frustrating as sometimes I have changed the code complete while testing things and will get something completely unrelated to the task at hand. Not sure when Microsoft figured this would be useful.
It works on the preference of selection of appropriate dll on runtime. Executables are not generated if there is any built error so the compiler looks for the executable which is existing which is obviously the last successful compiled.
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I am currently working on company which has several products with the same release cycle.
The problem that i got is i will need to create release file which include all files released and what the change for. And there are number of occasions where clients pullback from the change close to the release date.
The difficulty that i got is every time i create the release file, i have to got through all changed file and determine what the change is for and rollback the change if the client decide to pullback.
Do anyone know better solutions for change management that i can offer to management?
Thank you very much
Ps. I try to look at scrum already but i am not sure that it able to address my difficulty.
Version Control
Having a version control system is good, bug using it effectively is better. There are several ways to branch and merge effectively, two that might work for you are "per-feature" and "per-client".
Per Feature
In this setup, you create a copy of the main code (the trunk) for each new feature that you implement. Once the feature is complete, merge it back into the trunk. If you update the trunk before the feature is complete, or you complete a different feature, it is possible to merge those changes from the trunk into all of the branches.
Per Client
Same as per-feature, but each client gets their own branch, so that a feature rolled back for one is not removed from another. To combine the two, you might structure your repository like this:
Repos
+---Core
| +---branches
| +---tags
| \---trunk
+---Client1
| +---branches
| +---tags
| \---trunk
\---Client2
+---branches
+---tags
\---trunk
Project Managemet
Now, to address your actual question. I can't really say much about this from experience, but I am planning to add Trac to my project soon, because it looks simple to use, and it's free. You can see from their site how Trac's developers use their own application to set milestones and organize issues. If you want to look into more possibilities, then Wikipedia has a few lists.
You're probably best using a source code repository such as Git, Subversion, Mercurial etc.
Which one to use depends heavily on your needs and platform, however you're probably new to SCM tools so I'd recomment subversion with TortoisSVN.
There is a solution to your problem using ]project-open[, but it's not an easy one:
]po[ includes a ticket tracker that you can use for tracking your customer's change requests.
After implementing a change request, you need to include the #ticket_id in your commit comments, so that ]po[ can associate commits with change tickets. You need to have the ]po[ package intranet-cvs-integration installed and configured correctly for this purpose. The package name includes "CVS", but it can also integrates with SVN and GIT.
Finally, you have to create a script that applies the commits selectively to your code baseline, depending on the status of each change ticket.
This way you can automatically produce your release files, depending on the status of your change tickets.