Re: Use of CVS on large scales

[Jim Ray]

I think there are probably more one issue here.  The market that ClearCase is
for and the market that CVS is used for a two different things.  ClearCase is 
a process-based SCM system and CVS is not.  By process-based, I mean that the
processes are internal to the system.  Unlike a CVS or Perforce which the
process is defined by the Configuration Manager and everyone is expected to 
follow that process.  ClearCase does the "process" part for you.  Which for 
a growing company incurs a lot of admin time.  

CVS on the other hand can be flexible.  As a process is improved you can 
tweak CVS and your automation to fit the need with little changes.  


In "AntiPatterns and Patterns in Software Configuration Management" by Brown, i
McCormick, and Thomas, the first Antipattern is the Silver Bullet.  This 
AntiPattern, is based on the fact that no CM tool ever does the job completely.
It is more of a fit for your organization.  CVS may work now but maybe will 
not work as good in the future.

If he's a Quality person.  He may insist on information like file relations,
and stuff that may not be as easy to get out of CVS as a ClearCase.  I know
my boss did, but it was a matter of writing a Perl sript to get the information
in the display format that he wanted.  

He may also not realize that, the bug tracking system, Bugzilla operates
with CVS.  That could be what he's looking for.  A lot of the commercial
bug tracking software works with Clear Case. I've looked at most of the 
commercial products and I like Bugzilla and most of the mozilla tools.  

We use CVS at Jabber.com.  For web site and software development. And I
have implemented automated build scripts, auditing control and testing, and
even some automated software tests.  

Hope some of this helps.

jim



On Fri, Jun 08, 2001 at 11:40:35AM +1000, Lucas Chan wrote:
> Guys,
> 
> We are currently looking at implementing some kind of version control
> system.  We have been trialling CVS for the past few weeks, storing sources
> on a FreeBSD machine and using WinCVS on our development machines.  It seems
> that this is exactly what we're looking for.
> 
> I have struck a problem that I'm hoping some of you can help me with.
> 
> Our company hired a "testing expert" a week or so ago, and he is currently
> opposing our move to roll out WinCVS.
> 
> This is because:
> a) He's never heard of it.
> b) He doubts that it is scalable enough for us.
> c) He believes that anything that's free _must_ have disadvantages (as
> opposed to Clearcase for example).
> 
> This didn't go down too well with me (or my team) because:
> a) For someone who's supposed to be an expert on testing systems, it
> surprises me that he's never heard of CVS.
> b) When talking about scalability, I gave the example that FreeBSD itself is
> maintained using CVS.  i.e. implying that we're only building web sites, not
> whole operating systems.  This didn't seem to be good enough evidence for
> him.
> c) And of course, I'm a FreeBSD and Open Source fan.
> 
> So, to cut to the chase... it would be great if some of you could show me
> where to find further information about CVS.
> 
> I'm particularly interested in it's uses for (really)large scale projects,
> perhaps even some stats on the quantity of sources it can maintain, any
> advantages it has over commercial source control products, etc.  I've
> checked out the CVS web site but none of the information there was useful in
> this context.
> 
> Something like... a case study of a large software company using CVS would
> be pefect (I imagine).
> 
> Thanks for your time everyone.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> [ lucas ]
> 
> 
> 
> 
> [ the ego has landed ]
> 
> 
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