Re: Any Real time examples of Branching, Please!!!

[Wim Kerkhoff]

Teala Spitzbarth wrote:
> 
> There was a similar thread about Build Processes (Release Engineering)
> in CVS back in August, started by Bil Joga.   My reply outlines our
> tagging and branching model:
> 
> http://mail.gnu.org/pipermail/info-cvs/2001-August/018972.html
> 
> If you look around that date you will see a few other replies.

Hmm, interesting read, but doesn't specifically address the issue of
parallel developents in different branches. For example, HEAD, Beta, RC,
Stable, and Fix where each of these branches is being worked on daily in
every project.

> Also a helpful resource in this area is the Acme web site:
> 
> http://www.enteract.com/~bradapp/acme/

WOW!  This is the best resource I have discovered in a long time!  I
received this link just before leaving work, and had a quick look at the
site before leaving. I bookmarked it, thinking "read later tonight". I
looked at it again now, and found I had just started scratching the
surface of what was there. Thanks again for this link. There should be
more than enough information there to get me started on figuring
something out... I'm quite excited. I haven't seen a good resource like
this since discovering the Extreme Programming Wiki over at c2.com

> Although Fogel's book covers some Release Engineering issues - I think
> there is need for a book to be written specifically about Release
> Engineering with CVS.  Certainly  I have spent many hours eeking out
> rare information about branching (restricting access to branches) &
> commitinfo scripts, and figuring out how to work around bugs in the log
> command to get valid change report information. 

I imagine that thousands of lines of perl have been written to get
useful information out of the logs, deal with branching, merging, and
releases, and other things. Of course, most of these scripts are
probably specific to a project and can't be released to the public,
either because they are under NDA/copyright or they would be useless to
others. 

> I also know a fellow
> engineer that has successfully implemented CVSzilla, and the
> implementation details of CVS/Bugzilla integration would make an

While we having been using Bugzilla for quite a while, and are now in
the process of changing our development process to incorporate CVS,
implementing CVSzilla, CVSWeb, etc won't for us. Being a security
company, groups of developers have access to only certain areas of the
source code base. Only a couple of the senior developers have access to
everything. By default, that means much of the great SCM tools out there
can't be implemented without major modifications. Perhaps I need to do
some research into code access and how it relates to code management.

> important segment of any Release Engineering discussion.   I don't know
> how informative "Practical Software Configuration Management: The
> Latenight Developer's Handbook by Tim Mikkelson & Suzanne Pherigo "
> regarding Release Engineering in CVS, but if not, then I might summon
> the energy to start a "Release Engineering in CVS" book....

Customer Reviews on this book over at Amazon give it only 2.5 out of 5
stars:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0132408546/ref%3Dsdp%5Famz%5F/104-0310869-9172765

More good books are always good though :-)

What I really want to see is not theortical stuff, but hardcore
practical examples. Ie, the source to build scripts, steps in a release
process, diagrams of how things are merged and versioned between
parallel branches, etc. A chapter or two on Issue/Test/Build tracking
systems such as Bugzilla, Gnat, Tinderbox, etc and how scripts for those
systems can mesh into Releases under CVS would be great. Of course,
that's a wider scope then you were probably thinking.

Might I also suggest the possiblity of using a Wiki clone, so that
others can add content as well. The mod_perl guide started off as a FAQ,
became a mini-guide, and evolved into a large guide that is now being
made into a (dead tree) book. The author scooped much of the content up
of the mailing list, and from examining various perl modules and tools.
It has become a very good and useful resource for a wide range of
mod_perl users. Just a suggestion. It's starting to get late (once
again), and when it gets late I get chatty and start saying silly
things. :-)

http://perl.apache.org/guide/

> Do others know if there has been anything comprehensive published on the
> web or in book form about Release Engineering with CVS?

Now that I have the link to the ACME project, I can take a week off and
start reading through the stuff there. At a glance, the closest thing to
Release Engineering with CVS is the RCS/SCCS book from Orielly. Although
older, from a look at the TOC and Index it appears to cover some of
this.

http://www.enteract.com/~bradapp/acme/scm-readings.html

As you can tell, I'm new to the SCM world, but have been developing
software for a while, and recently have been putting a lot more thought
into this :-)

Thanks Teala.

-- 

Regards,

Wim Kerkhoff, Software Engineer
Merilus, Inc.  -|- http://www.merilus.com
Email: address@hidden