configuration management

What is "quality"? There are many competing definitions, but the one that makes the most sense, "Quality is in the eye of the beholder," is hard to make workable in a real business situation. Some would say it is impossible to use, but Agile methods beg to differ.

Is configuration management (CM) integrated into your development process? Do you have a good way to assess this? Do you have a process to improve the situation? Development without CM will eventually lead to lost code, delays in release schedules, and regression in functionality (amongst other negative impacts). The purpose of this article is to lay out a set of steps that can help assess the level of CM in the current development process (and environment), then identify ways to improve the situation.

It was way back when I was in school, walking uphill through the snow both ways, mind. That's when I first encountered Emacs and the Free Software Foundation. Because I was young and naïve and enthusiastic, I jumped in with both feet. Free software was going to revolutionize the world, and I was going to write most of it! I was naïve, like I said. I think most FOSS (free/open-source software) people get started in school, the same as me. A lot of the ideas come from the young and idealistic. Face it: young people have dumb ideas.

Every year we like to take a look at where the CM industry is going. There are always two sides to the story. Where is technology moving, and where is the market moving? Technology is moving ahead at a good clip, from some vendors, while stagnant with others. The same can be said of the market. There are those looking at a full ALM solution or an Enterprise CM solution, while there are others who are looking primarily for a version control/build tool, possibly with some change management.