Slight disagreement Joe!!!
I am a great advocate of the SCM repository being the definitive source of truth...
Many of the non-CM tools pay lip service to version management and baselining but in reality they normally don't have proper utilites to really "manage" versions (often they record a version but older versions can't be rolled back so you record another "version" which might be the same as a previous version (but equally might not be).
And those that do have adequate utilities normally don't have adequate enforcement of standardisation (or experienced users can bypass good practice because they don't really "get" good SCM and they can make it work - or are just too bl**dy lazy))
A typical example is:
Tool X has a perfectly adequate way to identify its entities to a level of granularity that can be managed as CIs - it also has an adequate way to export (and import) entities to this granularity..... CIs could therefore be defined and managed in a SCM/VM tool.........
But when Bill B*g B*lls tool guru makes several changes to several of these entities it is much easier (for him) to export/dump a much higher level in one go (combining several "logical" CIs in to a single blob) - This "blob" can be imported/exported at will - but obviously destroys any logic round versioning of CIs.
Conversly when BBB makes a small change to a single entity he won't (or doesn't) export the same level of "blob" he just exports a small part - once again destroying logic of CIs.
As the tools don't have the ability to enforce import/export at a standard level BBB can *&%$ it up very easily (and as per usual when BBB is defending his little world he likes to *&%$ it up so that he can say "The CM Tool can't cope with MY Tool X")
This is just an extreme example of the type of BBB who don't really "get" good cm and will do everything in their power to hold on to their little kingdom - they just won't accept the model where their all powerful Tool X is just regarded as a glorified editor and the outputs from it can be managed perfectly well without it.
I won't bore you with a recent example (OK yes I will).....
A BBB Tool "Guru" maintained that Tool X had Version Management and that it was impossible to export and/or import at a granular level - therefore we would have to "make do" with a dump of executables (that were also not re-loadable into the tool either).
VM in the tool was literally recording a "number" everytime an entity changed.... with no way of viewing/seeing or re-using the previous versions (and obviously no mechanism for parallel development etc)........
A little research from me on the discussion forum for the tool discovered that there was a menu option to export the "entity" at whatever granularity was required and to import back into the tool at that level (the output was also text based and readable - give or take some header info). So we could do proper VM and revert back to older versions "at will" plus carry out a level of comparison (which wasn't possible in Tool X) and manage parallel branches etc etc .........
I even got into a discussion with one of the board boffins to discuss baselineing and named branches etc of these entities in Dimensions.....
When presented with this solution BBB changed his tune to "the import/export utility (that he had just recently denied existed) was unreliable and risked 'corruption' of the system!!!".......
My snort of derision didn't go down too well................
Needless to say I am not on BBBs Xmas card list........ ;-)
