Re: IDE/Rational Apex experiences

["bklungle" <bklungle@ix.netcom.com>]

1. See my previous re config.
2. If Mr Bereny wants to call 310-616-2524, I will be glad to have the
software lead on the project tell him everything he wants to know, recorded
in a log book.

cheers..bob

Gabriel Bereny wrote in message <64a8tp$lro$1@rational2.rational.com>...
>bklungle (bklungle@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
>: At a certain large AeroSpace company, use of Rational Apex was mandated
by
>: management. There are 27 programmers trying to develop a very large
ground
>: based processing system using C and C++. When 4 users log onto the
Rational
>: Apex system, the response time on the network increases to around 20
>: minutes. The system HAS been optimized about as much as the Gurus know
how.
>: At this time, there is a pending uprising within the working staff to
>: eliminate it. Instead of a productivity improvement, it has brought
>: development to a standstill. Almost everyone would rather go back to SCCS
>: than continue with Apex.
>: One users experience over the past 11 months.
>
>Mr. Klungle does not specify anything regarding the hardware on which
>his company is running Apex, nor about the network configuration, nor
>about what sorts of operations are being performed on the system.
>I'm not doubting the veracity of his statement that things are slow
>or that the system has been optimized "as much as the gurus know how".
>But still we are left with questions about the precise nature of the
>system abd the operations.
>
>If Rational Apex is installed on a single IPC with 64 MB of RAM and
>4 users access Apex using PCs running some xterm emulation software
>as displays and rlogins to the IPC to run Apex, I have no doubt that
>response will be miserable. Note that this still fits in with the
>information that Mr. Klungle supplies. The system described is not
>what one would recommend, but it may well be "optimized" as much as
>it can be.
>
>We in Rational technical support have run six, seven, and more
>sessions of Apex on a single server (first a SPARCstation 10, now
>an UltraSPARC 2) using other SPARCs as displays many times over the
>past few years and have never seen "response time on the network
>increase to around 20 minutes" (whatever that statement may mean).
>
>If Mr. Klungle claims that his company has a proper hardware and
>network setup and that response time for an arbitrary operation
>(again, there's no clue about what operations he's discussing) is
>20 minutes, then I would have to doubt that the system is
>optimized or that the operation to which he is referring is
>"normal". "Not normal" might include checking back into a library
>a 400,000 line file in which every other line has been changed.
>
>I agree that Apex is large and slower than something like SCCS.
>On the other hand, Apex does a heck of a lot more than SCCS, than
>vi, than ...  There's no free lunch. Increased functionality
>requires larger amounts of space and large executables require
>more resources to run. This is certainly not a quality unique to
>Apex. If the current resources are strained even though they have
>been optimized, then more resources are needed. This is the way
>of the world in the computer business. Rational didn't make it
>this way but neither can Rational change this immutable fact.
>
>If the management of "large AeroSpace company" bought Rational Apex
>strictly as a replacement for SCCS, I'd be surprised. If SCCS is
>all that is needed, the working staff has a legitimate gripe about
>the response time. But I think that time griping and waiting for
>system response would be better spent presenting a case to the
>management that if they expect software tools to increase productivity,
>then they must invest in some hardware as well.
>
>
>
>Gabriel Bereny
>Rational Software Corporation
>Technical Support