GNU Make meets file names with spaces in them Suppose you are faced with creating a Makefile that needs to deal with two files named foo bar and bar baz, with foo bar built from bar ba'. I've used italics to make clear that these are file names that include spaces. |
||
Case Study: Enterprise & Database Configuration Management
A perennial question in the configuration management field is how to control databases. Databases are too big and too complex to be managed as simple objects. They have a very expressive language: SQL. This is used to describe their structure, content, and changes. A newer issue is how to do enterprise CM. Although some tool vendors have attempted to provide support for large-scale systems, full support for complex enterprise systems is still lacking.
|
Austin Hastings
April 1, 2007 |
|
Establishing Effective Software Metrics for the Measures You Want The goal of software metrics is to have a rich collection of data and an easy way of mining the data to establish the metrics for those measures deemed important to process, team, and product improvement. When you measure something and publish the measurement regularly, improvement happens. This is because a focus is brought on the public results. |
||
Lean Metrics for Agile Software Configuration Management Taking an lean-agile slant on metrics for configuration management, the authors focus on ways to measure the value CM and SCM adds to the project and product and how to measure flow and waste. |
||
Theory of Constraints, Lean, and Agile Software Development Delivering More Business Value Where Needed Within the software development community, one of the biggest movements over the past decade has been Agile Development whereby teams adopt practices and attitudes consistent with the now famous Agile Manifesto. Additionally, there has been much discussion over the past four to five years about applying principles from the Theory of Constraints (ToC) and Lean Product Development (Lean) to software development. This has had a tendency to muddy the surrounding waters as teams question whether they should apply Agile, ToC, or Lean concepts. Are these three approaches mutually exclusive? Is there some hidden magic that can be unlocked by careful application of all three? Isn't it hard enough just trying to be Agile, without also trying to be Lean and ToC-ish? In this article we give an overview of Lean and ToC and show how they can be used in conjunction with Agile practices to focus on an organization's business value. By using elements of Lean, ToC, and Agile together more business value can be delivered with less effort. |
||
Making an XML bill of materials in GNU Make In this article I present a simple technique that causes GNU Make to create a XML file containing a "bill of materials" or BoM. The BoM contains the names of all the files built by the Makefile and is nested to show the prerequisites of target. |
||
The use of Baselines in a SOA Environment In service oriented architectures (SOA), there are three essential components for delivery: published service; long-lived business processes; and short-lived business processes. Baselines are key to successful SOA delivery. They identify the service—and the components making up the service—being delivery to an environment and provide for co-existence of multiple services in the environments at the same time. |
||
Looks Do Matter In a previous article published on this site, "Testing the Bold and the Beautiful" (May 2001), the author received many thoughtful comments and questions about the importance of aesthetics in software. This paper was inspired in part from those questions. It clarifies the difference between aesthetic testing and usability testing. The paper makes the business case for "beauty testing" and argues that an ugly UI can undermine the bottom line. It offers methods and a survey-template for successful aesthetic testing. The paper concludes with a list of "Facts and Myths, Dos and Don'ts." |
||
The Renaissance Builder This month we would like to turn the spotlight on to that oft neglected and under-valued specimen the build engineer. In the physical world, the term “building” has traditionally inspired status and respect. We just have to think of structures from the pyramids to medieval cathedrals to skyscrapers. |
||
Change Management Is Essential to the Building Processes Building is considered to be one of the fundamentals of configuration management, even though some might argue that building isn't really CM. The reason it is fundamental is that the build/verification cycle provides proof of reproducibility if done correctly. It forces CM to be done correctly so that only the objects from the CM repository are used to reproduce the build. When formal build processes are correct, they need no information that resides outside of a CM repository. When properly done, the build record is created prior to the build (i.e., a build notice) rather than as a result of the build, with that record being used to drive the build process. An integral change management capability is an essential component of such a build process. |
Pages
Upcoming Events
Sep 22 |
STARWEST Software Testing Conference in Anaheim & Online |
Oct 13 |
Agile + DevOps USA The Conference for Agile and DevOps Professionals |
Apr 27 |
STAREAST Software Testing Conference in Orlando & Online |