Having used the PureCM Visual Studio Client for a couple of years I got a real shock when I had to do some work in Xcode. Creating a read-only workspace and checking out the files manually sounded like way too much overhead. So I created a writable workspace and ran check consistency when I needed to submit. This worked ok, but I really missed the way the PureCM Visual Studio client tracks which files I am editing. So when I got my hands on our 2011/2 beta the first thing I wanted to try was the workspace monitor. If you flag a workspace as monitored, then PureCM will keep track of when fil... [More]

  In this post I would like to explore more of the Agile Manifesto and how it relates to software development and to delve into some of the reasoning behind why PureCM was designed and built the way it is. Individual interactions over processes and tools. A cynic might look at this and say this means there is no need for software tools, but that's the point at all. Software tools are helpful and in many cases necessary but your tools should not define your process and you shouldn't be overly dependent on tools for communication. In Agile the right process is the one that works and over ... [More]

  Let's get this Agile Version Control (AVC) series started with a little discussion... It is important right off the bat to look at the definition of Agile versus the definition of Scrum. We'll talk about Agile and Scrum (and even more things) later on, so it's worth looking at these in more detail. Agile itself is not a specific way of working, it is generic set of principles or priorities which are outlined in the Agile Manifesto. These are listed as: Individual interactions over processes and tools Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over c... [More]

A few months ago we've run our first blog series, publishing about a dozen blogs on how common software challenges can be tackled effectively. The SDC series was born. We've had some great conversations with readers and customers as result of that blog series, so I'm glad to announce the next series that will start soon: Agile Version Control Hmm. Agile in 2011? Ten years after the agile manifesto was published? Of course! These 10 years have brought many rich experiences working with agile and other methodologies in software development. We still get numerous rich and insightful discussions... [More]

Good news for the many software developers looking to upgrade from Subversion to a more robust change management tool. PureCM now features a Subversion importer that will import an SVN trunk with full history. Anyone looking to do an evaluation of PureCM will now be able to quickly and easily import real data from an existing SVN repo into PureCM in order to get the best possible test drive of the system in the least amount of time. This will be a huge benefit to people who ask the question, "but how will my projects look in PureCM"? Now you can tell and with minimal effort since the import i... [More]

One change which you will probably not notice after installing 2010/2 is that submitted changesets are automatically merged to features in the background. If you work in a larger team with many developers using features then you will soon see the massive performance improvements. Prior to 2010/2 when you submit a changeset, this changeset is automatically merged to all features as part of the submit. This means that you are waiting around for this to finish until you can carry on working. Plus the server is locked so other users cannot submit until all the automatic merges are complete. This ... [More]

  There are many issues to consider when deciding how to structure your software from an architectural point of view. Chances are that you’ve already split up your code into several modules or components to separate the various routines. However, deciding about the best software design isn’t the purpose of this blog. At PureCM, we like to look at software from a version control point of view. So let’s agree for the purpose of this blog that a component is a set of files and folders that are versioned together. This also means we’re looking at code components, and... [More]

  Over the last few years, we’ve seen a large number of development teams moving away from file-based version control tools. This is no surprise, as new tools on the market started to support the concept of changesets and atomic commits. Why grouping changes makes sense So instead of checking in every single file, developers were now able to group their changes in changesets. This gives teams a much better project history, as each changeset reflects a task. Also, changesets are applied to the repository database atomically, i.e. completely or not at all, thus protecting database ... [More]