software development and data configuration management

Hi guys,

I work in an office with about a dozen software developer geeks (but
I love 'em) and a handful of data analysts, and we need some sort of software development and data configuration management tool. I have sort of been given the job of administrating the tool (whichever one I choose) so I get to be in charge of all these guys, he he he

Now I only know a little awk, and a little sed, and a few bash commands, so the software really needs to have a nice simple gui and not much command line entries, or I'll get lost.

to help with reccomendations:

-we generally don't get too many versions of data or software delivered to us from other groups, but sometimes
-we have lots of different versions of matlab.m files that different developers wrote
-we can have several updates/version to our output deliverables
-the developers use both/either Linux and/or Windows but our network is Linux based.
-remember, must have a nice interface with me, so I won't kick the machine with my heels

Hope to hear back from you soon...

Thanks so much guys!!!

Tabitha

Dear Attila the Hun... uh, Tabitha,

Bugzilla has been around for a long, long time and is used by any number of Linux projects, software developers and who knows what-all. Bugzilla is an Apache Software Foundation project. It works just fine on an LAN, anybody can access it with a browser (no installing software on anybody's work station). It requires a DBMS; e.g., MySQL.

See http://www.bugzilla.org/ for particulars.

I've used Bugzilla for over 10 years for software development and maintenance in large and medium organizations. I can highly recommend it. And, what the heck, it's free.

Hope this helps some.

Hi Tron,

well you sort of lost me when you wrote Apache, DBMS, and MySQL (actually I'm learning to be a geekette and know a bit about MySQL).

I'll check it out and see what the IT/Admin guy thinks about it...

Thanks much! Taby

Oh, sorry -- Apache is the Apace Software Foundation, the most well-know product of which is

The Apache HTTP Server is an open-source HTTP server for modern operating systems including UNIX, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS/X and Netware. The goal of this project is to provide a secure, efficient and extensible server that provides HTTP services observing the current HTTP standards. Apache has been the most popular web server on the Internet since April of 1996.

DBMS is the acronym for data base management system, MySQL is a DBMS extensively used throughout the world in pretty much uncountable small, medium and large scale applications.

All of these are FOSS (free and open source software), as is Bugzilla.

One thing I more or less forgot to mention is that Bugzilla is not only used to keep track of changes in computer software but also in any text (source code is, well, text).

Another package you may wish to look at is CVS -- concurrent versions system -- which is used to merge changes in a file in a repository so that different versions may exist and be used for different purposes. It's quite nice for software development and for text document development -- lets you keep track of changes. Take a look at http://www.nongnu.org/cvs/.

Hope this helps some

Good morning Tron,

yea I knew about CVS and removed it from my shopping list as it is just not user friendly enough for me. After looking over Bugzilla, I think the same may be true. I'm really not a computer techie, so I'm going to need someting that is VERY user friendly with GUIs and that sort of stuff.

Thanks, Taby

Something to think about, jus' sayin'.

Your preferences may be one thing, your developers', writers, editors may be something else. It never hurts to involve the folk that have to work with something in the choice of the something. In my experience, GUI-based software is frequently, not always, but frequently, a pain in the butt to use in a software and documentation setting -- simpler is better, almost always. Bugzilla is for reporting problems, getting work assigned and closing problem reports (plus a lot of other useful stuff), CVS is for checking out something (a document, source code, etc.), working on it, then checking it back in to a repository (with automatic version numbering). Both are widely used around the world for pretty much doing what you've described. Give some though to trying a couple of things before you "buy."

Revision control and bug tracking are pretty much mission critical things. Large companies not only employ whole departments, they spend tons of money on software and services in support of this.

If you're a small company and want to do it, but not make a huge fuss about it, then use a NAS server and a set of rules, i.e. have the developers and documenters use some form of revision and dating of information such that they can track it and where they were on such and such of a date or revision. If you need to track these things more globally and be capable of creating a branch based off of a prior revision and have several developers access that branch, then you want to use software which addresses this.

In the end, anything worth doing that's important such as this, is not something simple like using Outlook or MS Word, it is a complex undertaking. You either will have to buy something and pay to have it supported; hence set up the first time, or you're going to have to put in some time to take something free/inexpensive and put your own resources into the effort to make it easy to use and administer.

A further suggestion is to raise this topic with that development team, ask if a resource can be made available to help you end up with an easy interface to administrate from.

The suggestion for Bugzilla is a great one, for bug tracking. RCS is used to file revisions. There are others, but there is no easy, free solution where you'll have excellent control and capabilities, and minimal administration until you get it all set up according to your specific requirements.