Version Control

Open Source is a great concept, thmough any resisted at first. Can you remember a time when it was valid to use the argument that, "Nobody will commit to supporting it, so you're taking your chances"? Today, I see it differently. There are loads of support for open source products, even better than for commercial products in many cases. So does that make it the winner?

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.

What if you want to print out every variable defined in a Makefile? In this tip I'm going to show you how and introduce GNU Make's powerful functions.