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by Florian and Rolf.
Original Post: The infinite checkout loop
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Feed Description: Florian and Rolf talk about the trials and tribulations of software development in the java world.
IBM seem to be really switched on when it comes to selling software. It seems as though everywhere I go someone has decided to buy some or even all of the Rational/Websphere stack and I'm sure that the sales were not prompted by the superiority of their products.
Rational Application Developer and Rational Clearcase are new products to me, I'm an Intellij Idea and CVS/Subversion user normally, and my first impressions are not great. I'd love to think that I'm using these products with an open mind but I've a pretty good idea that this combination could inspire at least a couple of blog entries over the next few weeks as my exposure enables me to make a more informed judgement.
In the meantime, I'll tell you about some strange behaviour caused by a project standard and the use of these tools.
This week I discovered that the project standard was to store the RAD .classpath files in the Clearcase repository. The thinking behind this is that if someone introduces a new project dependency (which is reflected in the RAD .classpath file) then it is propagated to the team when they update from the repository. Now Clearcase operates on the principle that a file has to be checked out in order for it to be edited, and anything checked out is deemed to be dirty and in need of commital back to the repository at some stage.
My standard approach to development is to update from the repository often in order to reduce the chances of 'merge hell'. So before I began to cut any code in RAD I selected a Clearcase update and, surprisingly, Clearcase claimed that I had changed my .classpath file. With it being a new environment for me, I really wanted to make sure that I had the same dependencies defined in my development environment as everyone else so I asked Clearcase to undo my checkout of the .classpath file. Everything will be sweet then, won't it?
For some reason, call it the developer's sixth sense or call it a cynic's mistrust, but I felt compelled to update from Clearcase again straight away only for Clearcase to claim that I had checked the .classpath file again!
What the hell was happening?
Again I asked Clearcase to undo the checkout and tried an update. Again Clearcase claimed that the .classpath file was checked out! Then I noticed that every time I rolled back the check out RAD updated the workspace which obviously forced a modification (and consequently a checkout) of the .classpath file. Aaaagh! On top of all that, I also noticed that over the previous few days a lot of continuous integration builds had been triggered by alleged modifications to .classpath files.
It's good to see that these important files are integrated correctly ;). I think some reconfiguring of the system is on the cards.
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