From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.2 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 115aec,5aa763fe62c20184 X-Google-Attributes: gid115aec,public X-Google-Thread: f849b,5aa763fe62c20184 X-Google-Attributes: gidf849b,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,5aa763fe62c20184 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Marin David Condic Subject: Re: Pratt & Whitney's Embedded Software - CMM Level 3! Date: 1999/04/19 Message-ID: <371B9A5E.2804AC27@pwfl.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 468456475 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: condicma@bogon.pwfl.com References: <371B6EC8.36B9C247@pwfl.com> <7fftel$6po@drn.newsguy.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Organization: Pratt & Whitney Mime-Version: 1.0 Reply-To: diespammer@pwfl.com Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.realtime,comp.arch.embedded Date: 1999-04-19T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Mike_jr@nospam wrote: > > good job! > > btw, What source control software do you use? CVS? clear case? (please > do not say Visual source safe). > > Most companies I worked for where at CMM level -20 when it comes to > software configuration management and things of this sort. > People are going to think I hired a shill so I could pat myself on the back... The source code control (and the whole kit & kaboodle) was home grown. A large chunk of this effort was done under my design. That's why I'm proud of having played a big part in getting us a Level 3 certification. To briefly (I hope) describe the nature of the beast... A bunch of years ago we had the idea of building a diagram drawing tool for control laws diagrams which could store information in such a way that we could build a "picture compiler" to translate the diagrams to source code. (Hence the "Pictures-To-Code" name - although its a lot more than that now.) There was no commercial product that came close enough to meet our needs, so the compiler ended up home grown. (That, and some politics came into play! ;-) Surrounding this idea, we got ambitious and decided that all the diagrams should be assembled in documents to meet Mil-Std-2167a requirements - hence a full-up editing system was born. Beyond that, all documents (requirements, design, etc.) needed to be pulled together into a "system" so that we could automatically build the code, build the document set, etc. and preserve all the artifacts. >From there, a system needed to fall under configuration management and change control, so the concept expanded even further. A system could be baselined and a new one started from there. Any user could submit a change request against a system and the whole flow of the CR was automated - right to the point of being able to identify every artifact that was impacted by the CR and every CR that went into changing a particular version of a system or document. What it all meant was that we had laid the groundwork in software to support an entire process from start to finish which was a) written down, b) repeatable, and c) provided monitoring of the process for continuous improvement. We didn't know anything at the time about CMM because - I think - it didn't quite exist yet. (We're talking about 1989 when this whole thing got started). It was a fortuitous turn of events that had the great minds at CMU thinking exactly like the great minds at Pratt & Whitney. :-) After quite some time flogging everyone into adopting our process and gradually improving and increasing the automation, folks began to come around and see that we really had something here. We've got metrics dating back to the start of the project which have shown consistent improvement of productivity and reduction of defects. The whole effort has been a long and gradual improvement, but in the end, it got us the Level 3 certification and, more importantly, a safer, more reliable product at a lower cost. Thanks for asking! MDC -- Marin David Condic Real Time & Embedded Systems, Propulsion Systems Analysis United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, Large Military Engines M/S 731-95, P.O.B. 109600, West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600 ***To reply, remove "bogon" from the domain name.*** Visit my web page at: http://www.flipag.net/mcondic