RE: Tracking Code Changes

Subject: RE: Tracking Code Changes
From: Gwyneth Runnings <gwyneth -at- look -dot- ca>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 11:00:07 -0800

Gwyneth Runnings told us:

>I'm wondering if anyone has used specific software
>programs that track code changes-

My last company used Visual Source Safe, which I think many others
use as well. In order to change a file, the programmer or other user
has to check it out. This prevents people from working on the same
document at the same time and also preserves the earlier versions.
You can view the previous version and the new version side by side
and it highlights the changes.

That or CVS, but how does anyone ELSE know that somebody has made
any changes, and what the changes ARE. Most such version control
tools offer a comparison between two versions of a file, but just
requesting the difference report, let alone interpreting that report,
can be tricky. I'm dealing with a team of about 5 engineers who are
making changes across 6 versions of an API. Each has his/her own
idiosyncratic style for commenting what the changes they made were.
Some are excellent, but others report things like "changed some
constants."
--Guy K. Haas gkhaas -at- usa -dot- net aka ghaas -at- selectica -dot- com
Software Exegete in Silicon Valley


In VSS the whole history of who has worked on the file is available to every user, and you can compare any two files in the history, but you have to be able to read the code and have an idea of what the changes mean. Or you have to get your programmers to write comments in the comments field of VSS. You can look at the history and say, Hey Bob was working on that file. I can see he changed this line of code, although I don't see any comments.

Yes, you're right it does still require interpertation.


g ..

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References:
RE: Tracking Code Changes: From: Haas, Guy

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