Customer Reviews

Software Configuration Management Strategies and Rational ClearCase(R): A Practical Introduction (Addison-Wesley Object Technology)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

NOTE: This book is about a vendor product. Had to say that because too many people have complained that the author spent a lot of time on Rational's tools and approach. Of course - that happens to be fairly obvious from the word "ClearCase" in the title.

Good information for planning a ClearCase implementation. One worthwhile use of this book is to prepare your development and release team for ClearCase. This will make sure that everyone is familiar with ClearCase functions and how it is supposed to be used in the software engineering environment. I like the way the book also discusses SCM in general.

If you are planning on implementing ClearCase this book is an inexpensive way to prepare your team. If you're shopping for an SCM tool this book will give you an unbiased report on Rational's product. If you want to learn about SCM find another book because this isn't it. Oh, learn to read too.

I purchased this book specifically for information on ClearCase capabilities and features to support some project-related work. I expected a cross between a white paper and sales literature. What I got was a clear description of ClearCase and a relatively unbiased description of its features, how to effectively use it and how to employ it independently of a Rational-centric development shop. The bonus, though, is the first 49 pages that give a well-written overview of SCM in general. I also liked the chapter on the Unified Change Management Model, which seems to incorporate some best SCM practices and is full of ideas from which to borrow...

Chapter 4 is where the ClearCase-specific information starts and the author does an excellent job describing how the tool works, introducing Rational-specific terminology and concepts, and showing how the tool can be effectively deployed. This was the information I was seeking when I bought the book and I feel like I got everything I wanted and more. The clearly written text was augmented by equally clear illustrations, which allowed me to quickly absorb the material I needed.

This is obviously not an SCM book one would buy unless they needed to know about the ClearCase product. It is, however, an excellent overview and survey of ClearCase for anyone who needs to get quickly up-to-speed on the basics of the tool or is evaluating SCM tools and ClearCase is on their short list.

Overall this is a well-written book that is surprisingly unbiased. The author did an excellent job with the entire book and earns 5 stars for sticking to the topic and taking care to make things clear (pun intended).

I am happy with this book as a sincere attempt to break-down some of the SCM process with good examples. It lays a pretty clear roadmap for designing product lifecycle automation and tracking systems. Which, by the way, is easily summarized for use as justification for implementing SCM standards and conventions.

I respectfully assert to Mr. White that a sequel is needed to discuss implementation. There are many variations in organization, project, geography, team, and personal dynamics which UCM and the tool itself do not directly address. Templates for these additional SCM models need to be detailed in terms of how people work.

All-in-all, a very good book.

PS: Anyone thinking this is a roadmap to a non-product-specific or looking for implementation details for an SCM solution has overlooked the title.

It's terrific. Buy it; read it; press it on passers by :-) .

Brian White does a great job of changing the fundamental concepts we use while we're designing a process for development of a software product. He converts us from thinking in terms of ClearCase constructs, mechanisms, and operations, to, instead, concentrating on the the real-world aspects of the process. For example, from thinking too much in terms of:

* Branches and branching. * Labels. * Merging.

to focusing on:

* Participants' roles. * Individuals' activities and the set of changes made by each activity. * The desire for isolation vs. the need for integration. * Software subsystems and components. * Baselined configurations of components, upon which an activity's changes are made. * "Delivering" activities' changes so that they may be promoted to a broader scope of visibility. * "Rebasing" to incorporate the changes of a set of recently delivered activities.

As I read this book, I realized that I had previously let the implementation mechanisms distort my understanding and modeling of the process.

Brian clearly presents and discusses the possible ranges and combinations of team sizes, interdependence of activities, and process policies, which helps the reader see that one process/implementation does not fit all cases. (BTW, it also demonstrates that UCM doesn't pigeon hole you into one particular process; it's remarkably flexible).

After leafing through a few pages of Brian's book, a couple of my managers shunned it, saying that it "only presents UCM". On the contrary, Brian does a great job of using UCM (an available model) to present general principles, which come through largely unencumbered by the implementation details (i.e., the mechanisms of UCM).

The book is very readable and clear. Our team of Release Engineers are currently buried by builds and tortured by corrupted SourceSafe databases. I'm sure that, as their first (big) step towards moving into a ClearCase-based SCM system, they will read, understand, and enjoy Brian's book. They'll understand more about modeling a development process and how ClearCase can facilitate that process than their managers, who actually dictate the process and its implementation.

However, I stopped short of giving this book the highest rating because it said too little about modeling the life-cycle states of activities, and about the influence of activities' states on process. This important deficiency can not be justified by the fact that ClearCase (without ClearQuest) does not directly support life-cycle states. A good ClearCase implementation will usually support states through some home-grown mechanisms. Still, I highly reccomend this book to both experienced and inexperienced software process designers.

This book provides the reader with a lot of practical advice about using Clearcase and UCM with various size organizations.

I have used Clearcase for many years with various software development groups. In my experience, it's rare to find a development group that uses Clearcase to it's full potential. That's usually because not enough thought, planning, and maintenence goes into the SCM process. Clearcase (and UCM for that matter) is just a set of tools. Expecting it to solve your SCM problems out of the box is like expecting a set of carpentry tools to build a house.

This book suggests some ways that Clearcase (and branching in particular) can be used to manage software change and release. Some of the techniques are tuned for development groups of a particular size and/or development strategy. That is totally appropriate, since no single SCM process will fit a development group of any size.

After reading this book you should come away with many ideas about how to better use ClearCase and UCM in your software organization. And even if you don't choose to use the UCM tool, there are plenty of ideas that can be applied to basic ClearCase usage.

This book is very helpful for anyone using Rational ClearCase. It contains valuable examples, allowing the ClearCase user or manager of a CM group to gain additional insights regarding how to best apply the tool. The book also introduces basic concepts and the evolution of Software Configuration Management tools. It also explains how CM can be managed and controlled both within a project and between multiple projects. Additionally, the book explores the Configuration Management issues and approaches related to managing geographically distributed development projects.

Summary: Maybe good for beginners, practically useless for anyone with some experience.

Some time ago I worked with ClearCase and Software Configuration Management (SCM) issues without any theoretical foundation, most of the stuff we did evolved from the needs of the project. It was functional, but perhaps a bit ad-hoc.

Lately I've been asked to do some SCM work for the clients of my current employer, and was a bit concerned that my knowledge had deteriorated, and even hoped to learn something new. So I browsed some bookstores for books on SCM to get a better foundation.

I found the book "Software Configuration Management Strategies and Rational ClearCase" by Brian A. White. (Addison Wesley, 2000).

The Foreword by Geoffrey M. Clemm looks promising, but the book doesn't measure up.

The good things about the book is that the first 50 pages or so gives someone new to the area a pretty good overview. There is also a description of the evolution of SCM tools which could be useful for someone entirely new to the field.

Rationals concept of Unified Change Management (UCM) is also described, so the mystical aura around that concept is cleared away.

Perhaps, for someone who knows nothing about SCM, this book could be a useful introduction. But...

On the downside, the book is without much substance. Lots of rehashing the same thing over and over. I also get the impression that it is a shameless plug for Rational Tools (Rational ClearCase and Rational ClearQuest)

There is a lot of general discussion about different ways of doing CM, but precious little of Best Practices and down to earth tips and recommendations.

When it comes to discussion about ClearCase and how to use it, the examples are trivial walkthroughs of Wizards in the GUI of the tools.

Sadly, I cannot really recommend this book.

A very nice introduction to base ClearCase and UCM... From branches to streams, to dynamic & snapshot views, this book gets right to the point... Answers to the common questions: Why a snapshot view? Why a dynamic? Why ClearMake vs. GNU make? How can a group of 2 engineers configure their own sandbox? A group of 5? A group of 10? From sharing a dynamic view, to sharing a development stream, to sharing a subproject, this book touches on it all.

The authors illustrate how the following problems can be solved using a version control tool. Identify and store artifacts in a secure repository. Control and audit changes to artifacts. Organize artifacts into versioned components. Create baselines at project milestones. Record and track requests for change. Organize and integrate consistent sets of versions using activities. Maintain stable and consistent workspaces. Support concurrent changes to artifacts and components. Ensure reproducibility of software builds.

The historical background of software configuration management is described in chapter 2. Delta storage mechanisms are described on page 33. The ClearCase tool is described in chapter 3 through chapter 11. Strong emphasis is placed on the UCM process modeled on activities. ClearCase's unique features are not summarized in a single location. The manuals provided by Rational with the ClearCase product are better than the materials presented in this book. The product manuals are also clearly divided between using the UCM and using base ClearCase.

I am happy with this book as a sincere attempt to break-down some of the SCM process with good examples. It lays a pretty clear roadmap for designing product lifecycle automation and tracking systems. Which, by the way, is easily summarized for use as justification for implementing SCM standards and conventions.

I respectfully assert to Mr. White that a sequel is needed to discuss implementation. There are many variations in organization, project, geography, team, and personal dynamics which UCM and the tool itself do not directly address. Templates for these additional SCM models need to be detailed in terms of how people work.

All-in-all, a very good book.

PS: Anyone thinking this is a roadmap to a non-product-specific or looking for implementation details for an SCM solution has overlooked the title.