Dr. Dobb's Journal - November 2008 - (Page 61)

ADVERTISING SECTION DR. DOBB’S BEST PRACTICES APPLICATION LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT Going Agile with Seapine Software Choosing tools for your lean development process When your overweight process limits your ability to produce working code quickly, it may be time to consider an agile environment. As you pare down your process, it’s time to reevaluate your tools as well. A lightweight process calls for tools that are easy to use and configure. How can you collaborate and communicate effectively if you are wasting time entering data or administering a complicated workflow? The fact is, you can’t. When tools get in the way of your interactions with other team members and add to your backlog, they are no longer tools but hindrances. Agile development does not mean throwing out processes and tools altogether. On the contrary, the methodology requires balancing the need for process and structure with the basic desire for solid results. Success in agile development is measured by the working code produced to satisfy user requirements, not the number of specifications written, models designed, or meetings attended. Tools that support agile practices without getting in the way can make agile projects more successful. With Surround SCM, TestTrack Pro, and TestTrack TCM from Seapine Software, you can develop agilely and deliver the quality software your customers demand. About Seapine Software With over 8,500 customers worldwide, Seapine Software, Inc. is the leading provider of quality-centric application lifecycle management solutions. Headquartered in Mason, Ohio, with offices in Europe and Asia-Pacific, Seapine solutions help companies develop quality software. Seapine's products integrate into popular development environments and run on Microsoft Windows®, Linux®, Sun Solaris®, and Apple Macintosh® platforms. Visit www.seapine.com for more information. local machines and builds scattered everywhere, it can be difficult to determine what works, what changed, and who made the change. As an agile developer, Surround SCM gives you the source code control you need without the management overhead. Workspaces allow developers to experiment without worrying about breaking the existing code, while still having the benefits of versioning. Teams can work in tandem. Then, when the code meets a specific set of requirements, you can capture the functioning code in snapshot branches before moving on to the next iteration or story. Branches support parallel development Underlying the success of any agile development project is a solid change management system that tracks each and every modification to the code base. To tackle large stories, individuals or teams of developers need to work in parallel. Changes must flow seamlessly from the main codeline to development teams and back again. Surround SCM’s advanced branching capabilities support iterative development. Developers can work in parallel using their own workspace or a shared branch. Promoting, rebasing, and merging keeps the code fluid Using an iterative process means moving back and forth between different versions to fix bugs and fine tune the code until it works properly. Surround SCM’s robust promotion functionality allows you to select which changes to move from other branches into the sanctioned code. Successful agile development begins with the code Agile development relies on frequent iterations. While these iterations help you cope with delivering on ever-changing requirements within aggressive timeboxes, they can create a tracking nightmare. With dozens of copies of the code on Figure 1: Use branches for parallel development. http://www.seapine.com http://www.seapine.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Dr. Dobb's Journal - November 2008

Dr. Dobb's Journal - November 2008 Contents Friday Night Fish Fry Alia Vox Developer Diaries Developer's Notebook Saving Open Source Conversations iPhone Building Your Own Web Server Green Telnet What's New In Boost Threads? Testing Service Oriented Architectures Test Case Generation, UML, and Eclipse Unit Testing Web Services C3 Programming The Agile Edge Swaine's Flames Effective Concurrency

Dr. Dobb's Journal - November 2008

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