Re: Is CM important? (was: Use pragma INLINE or not?)

[aio!gwharvey@eos.arc.nasa.gov (Greg Harvey)]

In <15645@encore.Encore.COM> jcallen@Encore.COM (Jerry Callen) writes:

[previous letter stuff edited out here.]
>Don't drop it, but please make sure that you DO find time to teach something
>about CM. How many disasters could have been avoided if:

>- All of the source had been under CM?

>- The CM system could have easily recreated a particular collection of
>  source modules?

>- A good makefile existed?

>- Some regression testing had been done?

>Having a brilliantly crafted design doesn't help if the design disappears
>into the bit bucket because of an error with an editor, or a system crash,
>or some other problem that computer systems and users are all too prone to.

>It's hard to appreciate the value of a good CM system until you have used one.
>No, I don't mean RCS and make; they're useful tools, but they are just 
>pieces of what should be a larger system. 

Personal experience time:

I walked into a company (who shall remain nameless) where a group of
programmers were working on a postscript language intepreter/printer.
I considered each of the programmers on that team to be significantly
more competent in computer science than I was.  My main contribution
to the effort was to help establish configuration management and
help establish a thorough going test suite for the system.  I believe
that these additions help increase the value of THEIR efforts
several fold, but of course these changes would have been of no
value if these programmers had not been competent.

BTW...the customer that was contracting this work was so pleased
with these changes that they swallowed without comment a doubling
of the rates we were charging, just because of the enhanced value
of the additional management.  The comment I treasure the most,
though, was when one of the lead programmers (who co-owned the
company, by the way) made a comment later about how much smoother
things went under the new system than under the old approach.

I know this sounds like horn tooting, and I'm sorry about that.  I
was very excited at the added benefit just a little CM gave us.

[more stuff deleted]

>-- Jerry Callen
>   jcallen@encore.com


--
If you get the impression I'm not qualified to speak for my company, it's
because I ain't, I can't, I don't, I won't, and I don'wanna.
Greg Harvey                    --Temporarily without mail service
Lockheed, Houston Texas        --Hope to have a PSCNI route soon!