[TCLCORE] FW: Managing patches and stuff with CVS

[Jeffrey H. <jef...@aj...>]

This was sent to just me, but I thought it worth sharing with
everybody.  I'm trying to think about how these points can be
best integrated into the CVS management policy pages...  :^)

I'll have to find a good substitute for the Canolli.

Jeffrey Hobbs                     Tcl Ambassador
ho...@Aj...          Ajuba Solutions (née Scriptics)

-----Original Message-----
From: Henry Cox [mailto:hen...@Si...]
Sent: Saturday, July 01, 2000 1:03 PM
To: jef...@aj...
Subject: Re: Managing patches and stuff with CVS


In one company in which I used to work, revision control
was a serious issue.

1) thou shalt not check in code which breaks the build
  [...on the main development platform(s) at least -
  the average developer can't possibly build on all
  machines].
   - corollory:  he who breaks the build did a Very Silly
     Thing, (which is usually easy to correct), and thu
     owes the entire team a Canoli (there was a good
     Italian bakery down the block.

2) thou shalt not break the check-in tests.
  - corollory: he who breaks the check-in tests did a
    Very Very Silly Thing (which is often difficult to
    diagnose and fix), and thus owes the entire team
    lunch.

It is harder to work this out, with distributed teams,
but the upshot (from a management/project lead perspective
is that people become more careful about breaking stuff.
This is good, by itself.  When someone does something
silly, the team then gets together to eat something
(which can be good for team building) - which also
gives the opportunity to discuss what went wrong, and
how to fix it.

My experience is that new guys break things once or twice,
learn a lesson, and don't do it again.  They then watch
the senior guys _very_ carefully - because they want to
catch them out.  (In some cases, it is a good idea to
take cash from your budget and give it to a senior
guy, asking him to (quietly) break something.  Then
the junior guys can find it, and not feel too bad.)

Sounds silly, doesn't it?  Surprising how well it
works, though.  (I imported it into several companies.)

				Henry

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