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Those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it. This is not only true of great conflicts, but equally true in the IT world. Too often costs exceed estimates, and we are ignorant as to why, or by how much. We do not have data to help us understand what went wrong, what went right, or how to apply it to the next project. We are ignorant of our history as a department, a company, and an industry.
If you all you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. Problem Solving 101: identify the problem, figure out what you need to fix it. If we agree that the problem is inadequate data to reconcile estimates and real costs, and use that information for future projects, then the solution is a tool that will collect, organize and distill that data into something usable. In other words, the solution is software. Not just any software, but software designed and tested by the boots-on-the-ground IT professionals who need and use the data.
I am interested to learn from the community what software or other mechanism people use to address software project estimation needs and cost/effort actuals analysis, as well as for project accounting.
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John Aivazian wrote: I am interested to learn from the community what software or other mechanism people use to address software project estimation needs and cost/effort actuals analysis, as well as for project accounting.
Software is a tool not a solution.
Microsoft Project is used for project management and project task management (two different things) however whether that is successful depends on the "processes" that are in place at the company.
A company that is not committed to creating and maintaining process control will never succeed at project/task management in any meaningful way. The company must be committed enough to make successful implementation of process control a significant factor is measuring success of managers and lower level workers. The company must also have the buy in of a high level manager to insure compliance. One proven successful way to do this is to base employee reviews in a significant way on the employees use/compliance with existing process controls.
Naturally for it to be really successful the company must also recognize that those using the process control procedures must have significant input in the creation of the processes and also that processes can change over time.
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Hi jschell,
I don’t mean to be too flip but thanks for the brilliant flash of the obvious. I think everyone is well aware of that Microsoft Project can and cannot do. I am really interested in what people are using upstream of Project for software project estimation (cost and effort) before a plan is created in Project, which Project sorely lacks, as well as downstream for actual project accounting. It seems to me that there are very few solutions out there to address these needs.
John Aivazian
gnmsoftware.com
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John Aivazian wrote: I am really interested in what people are using
As I said what they are using is Project. They use it for estimation. They use it for task tracking.
Any lack in the tool doesn't alter the fact that they are using it for that.
I have worked on projects with up to about 100 people and I haven't worked on single team projects for probably 15 years. And everyone uses Project. I have never heard any suggestion for any other tool. The only alternative that usually occurs is when no tool at all is used.
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Quill and parchment.
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair.
nils illegitimus carborundum
me, me, me
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Hi
I have some problems in TFS and I don’t know from where to Start. My Boss desire to move from Visual Source Safe to TFS.
Main problem is that I don’t know TFS to as good as I wish to and reason of that I can’t choose witch is better for us TFS 2005 / 2008 / 2010 or 2012. (I would choose 2012 edition but it’s cost is to high.)
Can you give me link to comparison article or list of features that will help me to make comparison and pick one. We need minimal version that will fully realise our workflow and software development lifecycle.
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Your boss is mandating that you move to TFS but is also mandating that you can't spend the money for the current version?
So pick the most recent one before that.
Presumably your boss is also refusing to consider anything but TFS.
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Hi
Thanks for your replay.
I already install demo of TFS 2008 / 2010 / 2012 and at this moment I am exploring difference between them.
It is bad that I couldn’t find any good article about this, but I think I will write one in the end of the week.
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Hello together,
we want to run benchmark tests on our testing PC.
We were suprised that the benchmark sometimes shows strong deviations. (sometimes only 20% of the best benchmark value, with several windows versions).
I can not explain what happens there.
We even made an image of the pc's hard drive that we reinstall every time we run the (two) benchmarks.
Still we have those deviations.
The next time when i will do some testing i will check if the following services are not running
- the index service
- the defragmentation service
- the antivir service
Do you have any ideas what has do be stopped/made/run in addition to the above to make the benchmark more consistent.
I hope this is the right forum for this.
Regards
Sascha
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S. Becker wrote: to make the benchmark more consistent.
My guess would be that your benchmark is either just wrong or you do not understand what it is measuring.
Should note as well that attempting to measure a PC/OS without understanding the real business use (generally an application) is an excercise that is doomed to fail.
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We did the benchmark tests with two different benchmark tools and both showed those strong deviations. So i do not think
that it is a problem of the benchmark tools.
The way the benchmark is run is defined in a word document.
Even if we would not understand what has been measured: if the input is the same the output should be also the same.
My job is now to make clear what went wrong because if the (benchmark) pc not allways produces the (more or less) same result
how can our software be measured.
Thank you.
Regards
Sascha
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S. Becker wrote: We did the benchmark tests with two different benchmark tools
Maybe you should talk to the people who provided the tools. Benchmarking computers is a difficult activity at the best of times because there are so many variables to be taken into account, particularly with multi-tasking operating systems.
One of these days I'm going to think of a really clever signature.
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S. Becker wrote: how can our software be measured.
By running your software and exposing it to various loads.
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In the end it was a mix of a to small sample for calculating the relative variance and some unnecessary processes (upgrade service for ex.)
Now with the bigger sample and the stopped processes the results are more consistent.
Thank you for your help.
Regards
Sascha
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Hi, I'd like to know the best practise for this situation :
Once upon a time, there was a project (A), whose output is mixture of exe and dll files. One needs to create an installation package using the InstallShield and to have also the installation package in version control. The build should run on the build server.
As fas as I know there are two usable ways, how to setup this:
1. one solution S with project A and second InstallShield project. The input for the InstallShield project would be the primary output of the project A.
The build solution BS will include this solution S.
The dll files are not in source control, however there is a possibility to build them.
2. one solution S1 with the project A, that would have after build process - copy output to some destination. Second solution S2 with setup project that takes input from that destination, as a prebuild action it makes check-in of the dll files. The build solution BS will include this solution S2. The dll files are in the source control (preffered).
I don't know whether it is possible to set some prebuild action to InstallShield (LT version).
If you have some ideas how to solve things like this please share it. Maybe there is some really simple solution that I don't know. Thanks 
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tomas.ivan wrote: there was a project (A), whose output is mixture of exe and dll files.
tomas.ivan wrote: The dll files are not in source control, however there is a possibility to build
them.
Either those two statements are mutually exclusive or you think that the dlls need to be in source control after the build complete. For the second part the dlls need no more been in source control than the install executable is.
Ignoring that and looking at a high level view then...
A configuration management (CM) person is a person whose job or at least a principle role is to do builds. And only do builds (the role.)
And given the following two possibilities.
A - Two solutions. One used only be developers. Second that includes projects of first solutions in addition to install shield.
B - One solution. Includes common developer projects and InstallShield.
With a CM person/role then use A. If not then B. Might keep in mind that InstallShield licenses, specifically cost, might require at least a CM role (versus every developer managing InstallShield.)
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I have just started using Mercurial, for a website project in this case.
It is all done on a local repo (backed up), not using BitBucket (or similar host).
===Preamble===
This is my first step into version control beyond keeping sepearte folders, one for production (essentially a static folder representing the current live state) and one for development (both feature updates and content). The prior approach was beginning to give me all kinds of headaches when I had an incomplete feature but needed to update the content, keeping the two folders in sync (for content only) was horrid.
I started by doing the features in a clone and content updates in the original. Then Pulling the Feature clone into the original clone (and managing conflicts was a pita but not really that bad), but have now switched to using named branches and it's working absolutely fine. I haven't tried bookmarks yet, simply haven't found a reason that has caused me to understand what they do differently to named branches).
============
===The Question===
The one thing I can't work out how to do is to move single changesets from one branch to another. Let's say I have a feature branch that has 5 changesets but is incomplete, then I need to make a bug fix to the live site. I make the bug fix in the default branch and want to push it into the feature branch but without merging - otherwise the merge would have an incomplete (broken) feature!
==============
===Extra Info===
For clarity I need to get the bug fix out to the live server and whilst I might do the work in a new branch, once done it would get merged back into the default, so once again I'd have two branches, default and the feature branch.
I think, from descriptions I have read (but haven't tried), that this kind of thing is pretty easy to do when you are using BitBucket (or similar host), you just pull the specific changeset (and its history) into your local clone. So I imagine it's also easy to do so between local clones (again I haven't tried it), but for lone nor money i can't work out how to do it within a single repo - i.e. between local branches.
===========
Any help gratefully received.
Thanks,
Mike
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I haven't used mercurial as much as I've used SVN.... but in SVN, you can merge certain revision numbers instead of doing everything at once. That would get you exactly what you want, but I'm not sure how it's done in mercurial. In SVN, all you would have to do if figure out what changes you want based on looking at the log of your branch, write down the numbers of the revisions, then go to the trunk and do a manual merge, on that merge, you can specify to only merge the revision numbers you want.
I know this really only directly applies to SVN but you may be able to think of a way to do it based on how it's done on SVN.
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I'm currently looking for a codename for an operating system. I started with Pole OS, but I'm not sure if it's nice, and easy to remember. Also I came up with another codename, Prodane, but I'm not sure whether I should use it, as Prodane is not an actual word in any language. So, do you have any ideas? Please let me know. Also, If you can thing of a logo, you'd be very helpful.
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It's probably a better idea to write and test it first. Names often suggest themselves during the development of projects based on experience and feedback from beta testers. Alternatively you could name it after your cat.
Programming is work, it isn't finger painting. Luc Pattyn
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I have already developed the biggest part of the project, and it is named Pole OS, but I don't understand, how could the beta testers and the feedback help me reach a codename? And anyway, I've heard that some projects are initially developed without a name (like iOS). Any idea how is that? I mean, what do they show the user when they start up?
The project site is:
http://sites.google.com/site/fxpoleos/
Thanks for your help!
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iPick12 wrote: I've heard that some projects are initially developed without a name (like iOS).
True, or just given a temporary name. Some I have heard in my professional life: Rowanoaks, Fullstream, Greenbay ...
iPick12 wrote: I mean, what do they show the user when they start up?
Anything they like, why does it matter?
Just display something like:
Pole OS Copyright iPick12
version 0.1.3.27 (Beta)
Programming is work, it isn't finger painting. Luc Pattyn
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Warsaw?
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair.
nils illegitimus carborundum
me, me, me
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