why do i need RTC?
hi..
currently we use in our organization, eclipse 3.5.1 for development, CVS for SCM, (or ClearCase for VisualStudio) and HP mercury center. i'm trying to convice folks to use mylyn with qcmylyn as adapter to qc. thus we would have context managment for issue control with direct and live update. i'm also thinking about using Eclipse Process Framework which is also integrated with mylyn. what will RTC give me? will it replace these products? will it integrated them? i understand that RTC is part of the jazz foundation which has it's repository and server, for issues, artifacts, requirements managment. well qc has it's DB, and for word documents we started using MOSS 2007 which has document versioning as well as workflow control. if jazz's aim is to integrate all these products, and not replace them, the same way eclipse provides integration via plug-ins to other systems, then that would i mean (i'm guessing) that i would have to develop plugin using JIA apis to each of these systems (MOSS,QC, etc..) in order to provide a unified behavior of user interface and workflow management for issues. (instead of having user submit a document to moss via a browser, open qc ACTIVEX client to create a requirement, and use eclipse to update from cvs). am i correct? i was asked to examine RTC for our organization, and i'm looking for a thread of where to start, and how to fit it in. |
8 answers
I started using RTC a year ago when i joined the Jazz Foundation dev team and have really fallen in love with using it. It looks at software development using modern technologies and how developing can be done easier.
Here are some of the things that I have really enjoyed about using RTC: 1. Jazz Source Control is the best SCM i've ever used, i have done many complicated code merges and checkins that gave me a large headache when i tried to do the same with other SCM tools in the past. 2. software planning, bug control, and SCM are tightly integrated with each other and some aspects can be customized to suit your team's needs. for example, custom work item/bug types 3. setup is really simple. the longest step in getting an instance of RTC up for me was downloading it 4. the software development process features really helps keep your team under control. Some examples of this are required code reviews and approvals before code can be checked into the main codebase, and making sure that the proper licensing/author comments are placed in your code before it can be checked in. 5. the web UIs are a great way for non-developers to interact and see what's going on with development without having to install anything. You can do pretty much anything (minus writing code) from the browser or from the eclipse client. here is a full list of RTC's features: https://jazz.net/projects/rational-team-concert/features/ and if you haven't interacted with the Jazz Web UIs yet, check out the RTC's development status/bugs/plans/etc. here: https://jazz.net/jazz/web/projects/Rational%20Team%20Concert#action=com.ibm.team.dashboard.viewDashboard&team=RTC%20Development hope this helps! |
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according to what you are sayin then inorder to use RTC, i would have to replace, HP quality center, CVS, clearcase, at thte same time, and train all our users and developers to use it. that's pretty hefty switch. i was under the impression, it allows you integrate everything into everything, like eclipse does, with DTP to databases, mylyn to qc, Remote explorer to remote machine etc.
I started using RTC a year ago when i joined the Jazz Foundation dev team and have really fallen in love with using it. It looks at software development using modern technologies and how developing can be done easier. |
On 03-Dec-09 7:22 AM, elhanan wrote:
according to what you are sayin then inorder to use RTC, i would have I think there are two different topics here: 1.- Do I need to replace everything to use RTC? I think the answer is No. It is true that as much RTC services you use, you will get more traceability, more links, more information... but you can start adopting just a couple of services like Work Items and Planning for example, later Building and finally SCM. Or not... just use some services for the rest of life. 2.- Can I integrate other software pieces as a RTC service? Well, there are some kind of such integrations already, and if the one you need doesn't exist you will be able (as with Eclipse platform) to extend RTC to integrate your piece, ask for an enhancement to the product, or ask to the other piece provider to provide such integration. For example, I read you are using Rational Clear Case. For such example there is a couple of built-in integrations like: Clear Case Connector which synchronizes data between Clear Case and RTC SCM component and Clear Case Bridge which shows Clear Case to RTC services as if it is the RTC SCM service (not exactly this, but some how). For CVS there is not such integration built-in but there are the APIs to be extended and develop your own connector (exactly what happened with Eclipse where tens of SCM connectors appeared for other SCM Servers than CVS). Now, is it easy to develop my own integrations when they don't exist...? It depends in many factors but some how, like happened in Eclipse. Hope this helps, Chemi. |
Ralph Schoon (63.3k●3●36●46)
| answered Dec 03 '09, 2:36 a.m.
FORUM ADMINISTRATOR / FORUM MODERATOR / JAZZ DEVELOPER
I'd suggest to download RTC Express C and have a look at it using the links provided above. It is free for up to 10 developers. A test installation of client and server can be done in approximately 30 minutes (well the first time might take an hour) and will already provide all integrations as well as process support from templates.
There is a HP Quality Center integration provided by a partner, so you would not have to replace that part, in case you use QC only for testing and quality management. Nevertheless RTC comes with Work Item Management, Planning and reporting, Build Management and SCM. You can gain from RTC just using the work item component for planning and stay with the rest, even have the work items integrated with HP QC by a partner. A lot of teams, even within IBM seem to start there. RTC has an bridge to ClearCase so those teams could use that and still gain from the other advantages RTC has (I believe our ClearCase development teams do that). It is possible to use RTC just for planning and stay with CVS. However you would loose all the nice integration with planning, build management etc. that provide the most benefits. I believe RTC SCM is so far advanced compared to CVS that it will be easy to convince the teams to migrate away from CVS which RTC allows to do. In my opinion what Eclipse calls integrations of tools and what RTC calls integration of tools is a completely different semantic. Integration of tools in Eclipse means they can more or less independently live within the same shell. They don't need to know about each other. All tools have different work flows, meta models etc. Integration of tools in RTC means the tools provide useful additional capabilities. As an example it is possible (also to enforce) to provide a Work Item (e.g. a task) when delivering code changes in Jazz SCM. The work item will show which changes have been made for it and allow to review that with like 3 clicks down to the individual changes. On code level it is possible to figure out who did which change for what reason with some 3 clicks also. The Build component knows about Jazz SCM and can be configured to automatically accept the latest changes, download to code to somewhere on the machine it runs at and start building it. The configuration is quite easy, just some clicks the work is in the build scripts as always. After Building a baseline/snapshot is created automatically and the build result is fed back to the server. Everybody interested has access to it. The build result is a real object in RTC not just some log and provides access to all code changes that went into it compared to the build before, broken down to work item changes in case work items are provided. This information is just one click away. The work items that went into this build also know in which build they went and you can access that build(s) with a single click. If the build is great and a candidate to be shipped for testing just another click on the build result can make it a release (candidate) which can be used to file defects against immediately. Releases are tracked and can be accessed from the project with just some 3 clicks. If the build has issues you can create a defect or another work item directly form the build. User working against this work item can immediately access the build result, the changes, the code used for it, the JUnit issues etc. from this work item. RTC knows about the temporal structure of the project (if you provide that information) as well as the users time dedicated to teams working on it (also planned absences etc if provided). This feeds directly into the planning component. a plan is a dynamic query collecting work items that are important for the plan. Plans can also work as a point of collaboration e.g. a WiKi. There are different plans for planning at project, team or iteration level. Work items can be accessed, ordered, prioritized and manipulated otherwise in plans. So that the team knows what to do. With estimates provided the plan will tell you if all the work can likely be done or if individual team members are already overbooked. This allows for early adjustment. There is also individual planning so a user can see the work to do and when that is likely to happen based on the estimates given. I hope you get a glimpse on what I meant being the difference between running in Eclipse and being integrated. Can you do that with CVS, Mylin, HP QC? And last but not least RTC provides many ways of collaborating such as RSS feeds indicating important events such as build failures, code changes of team mates delivered, incoming work etc. Links to development artifacts such as work items can be used in chats, discussions etc. I have worked with various tools over many years and I think RTC is beyond compare to what I have used so far. And its getting better each release too. I realized that you have to really try it to understand its benefits. Words and slides just don't deliver what it does. I think its definitely worth a try. Just my 2 cents. Ralph according to what you are sayin then inorder to use RTC, i would have to replace, HP quality center, CVS, clearcase, at thte same time, and train all our users and developers to use it. that's pretty hefty switch. i was under the impression, it allows you integrate everything into everything, like eclipse does, with DTP to databases, mylyn to qc, Remote explorer to remote machine etc. I started using RTC a year ago when i joined the Jazz Foundation dev team and have really fallen in love with using it. It looks at software development using modern technologies and how developing can be done easier. |
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let me explain our current predicmment
we have a few java developers working with CVS and QC and insane framework who dosnt allow much of test cases and a long ant build process to boot so can rtc be used for java development? we have net developers working with clearcase and others who work with source safe and we have about 200 cobol developers with no scm no issue tracking and a custom plugin on eclipse 3.0 i was told to ignore the integration problems and just look at product itself. i wanna be ready to show on 1 hour meeting in 4 days. I started using RTC a year ago when i joined the Jazz Foundation dev team and have really fallen in love with using it. It looks at software development using modern technologies and how developing can be done easier.l |
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Ralph Schoon (63.3k●3●36●46)
| answered Dec 04 '09, 2:19 a.m.
FORUM ADMINISTRATOR / FORUM MODERATOR / JAZZ DEVELOPER
My summary would be: RTC can help with all of it and allow for a federated ALM system for Java, .Net and Cobol developers.
The RTC Eclipse client is great for developing Java. See below on CVS and QC. We have an RTC Visual Studio .Net Client that allows .Net developers to use Jazz SCM, Work Item, Build and Planning (2.0.0.2 to be shipped soon adds several new capabilities https://jazz.net/downloads/rational-team-concert/milestones/2.0.0.2RC1?p=news). Clear Case users could stay with ClearCase or migrate to RTC if you want to federate the repositories. Cobol: I guess it depends on the platform. With Rational Developer for Z and RTCz you can have the Cobol developers working with Eclipse and RTC but being connected to a Z and debug and deploy their code there. https://jazz.net/projects/rational-team-concert-z/. We also provide a similar solution for System I. CVS: Can be replaced importing the code. This allows for way better traceability and work management. If you so desire you could keep CVS initially. There is an integration that can even track CVS changes in work items. You would loose the tight integration to build though and have to do some work for loading the right code from CVS for build. QC: Using BSD Groups RTC QC connector http://www.bsdgroupinc.com/qcrtc.php would allow maintaining Defects in QC and RTC while having the deep integration of work items, build,.... The Build component would typically be used for unit testing. My assumption is it could also be used to launch functional tests as I think you are talking about below. I can't help you with your meeting. There is loads of information on this site as well as on www.ibm.com. Do you have contact to IBM Rational so that someone could help with presentations? If not, you could drop me an e-mail and I can try to forward that to someone who might be able to get you in contact. The only issue is the short time frame. Ralph let me explain our current predicmment I started using RTC a year ago when i joined the Jazz Foundation dev team and have really fallen in love with using it. It looks at software development using modern technologies and how developing can be done easier.l |
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the time frame has just been extended to a week and a half .
we are using microfocus cobol on aix, do you provide solution for that as well? My summary would be: RTC can help with all of it and allow for a federated ALM system for Java, .Net and Cobol developers. let me explain our current predicmment I started using RTC a year ago when i joined the Jazz Foundation dev team and have really fallen in love with using it. It looks at software development using modern technologies and how developing can be done easier.l |
I believe the MicroFocus offers and Eclipse IDE, which should work with the RTC Eclipse client, but I can't say for certain one way or the other.
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