Comments on: I don’t talk much here about my job…

By: Alex

Alex — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 18:56:02 +0000

Apparently one of our out-source offices in India is on a flakey dial-up connection. They sync to one machine (which can take several hours) and then the developers work off that. So, thank Rational Clearcase for putting you on par with a narrow-band connection on the other side of the planet.

By: Mr. McLaren

Mr. McLaren — Tue, 14 Jun 2005 18:49:40 +0000

Sometimes I dream about Perforce. Seriously. We used to use it when I worked on PowerBuilder. (We also used it at YouPowered, but I don’t like to think of those days.)

Although I have been hearing a lot of good thing about Subversion as well.

However, I am stuck with ClearCase: a system so complex that for every 20-odd developers you need a full time system admin. A system so poor at handling remote developers that it often takes me multiple DAYS to get my source tree synched. A system that has literally no way of answering the question “what other files were changed at the same time this one was”. A system that literally CAN NOT be accessed by a machine that is not part of the domain that CC runs on (like a home computer, on a workgroup, that was VPN’d into the network for example).

Kill me.

By: George

George — Tue, 14 Jun 2005 15:06:43 +0000

We’re using Perforce. I swear by it, but I have to say that the only other SCCs that I’ve used have been RCS, CVS, and the home-grown one that was in place when I was doing co-op (which, I think, was backed by RCS).

By: Mr. McLaren

Mr. McLaren — Tue, 14 Jun 2005 01:48:03 +0000

What SCC do you guys use?

I only ask because I have a 10Mbit connection, and it can take 8 hours for me to synch up–but I am fully willing to put the blame for that squarely on the shoulders of Rational Clearcase (”a marvelous merge tool attached to a hideous repository”).

By: George

George — Mon, 13 Jun 2005 17:52:20 +0000

We have contractors in India. They have source control access, but in order to keep costs down, I’m pretty sure that they’re running over a 1200 baud modem, since it takes about 8 hours for them to sync up when it should take 1/2 hour, tops.
As a result, they sync to a single machine, check out all the files, copy to various machines around their lab, do work, copy the files back to the source control client, then submit their changes. Hardly any problems ever occur.

That last sentence was sarcastic, just in case you don’t have that out east.

Also, an EBF release is supposed to be an “Emergency Bug Fix release.” However, it’s gradually turned into an “Extremely Buggy Feature release.” Welcome to corporate NA.