How I Use Surround SCM: Working Directory Differences –Learn more about enhanced working directory differences in Surround SCM 2012, and how they help one user remember to add new files to Surround.

Using Separate Configurations for Surround SCM Mainline Branches – Learn how to get more granular control over your mainline branches in Surround SCM 2012.

Naked Agile Helps Students Understand What Becoming Agile Really Means—The first of a three part series, this entry answers the question, “What is Agile anyway?”

Video: Calculating Risk Scores in TestTrack—This video demonstrates how to set up risk calculation fields in TestTrack 2012.

The All-New 2012 Seapine.com—Seapine’s redesigned web site includes new content and reworked site navigation to make everything easy to find. Check out the new layout and features!

Webinar: What’s New in Seapine ALM 2012—Join us on February 7 to see some of the over 100 new features and enhancements in  Seapine ALM 2012. There will be time to ask questions and learn more about specific features during the one-hour webinar. Register today!

New TestTrack features include a new native relational database, custom fields that calculate values, and draft and active custom fields. Surround SCM’s new features include improved offline support, more flexible mainline branches, and additional integrations, while QA Wizard Pro now features stress testing, Google Chrome support, integration enhancements, and more.

In the one-hour webinar, Paula Rome and Grant Lammi, Seapine product managers, will demonstrate the new features in Seapine ALM 2012. When the demonstration is over, you’ll have time to ask questions and learn more.

The webinar is being offered twice to accommodate Europe and North America attendees. The first webinar begins at 2:00 p.m. Western European Time (9:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time), and the second will follow at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (11:00 a.m. Pacific Standard Time).

Join us!

We’ve loaded the site with new content and reworked the navigation to make it all easier to find. You’ll also see these changes:

• Home Page – The home page has been redesigned to give you quicker access to the latest content on our site. You’ll find easy access to customer stories, news, and event info.
• Solutions – The solutions pages have more industry-specific information, and we’ve also added solution pages for each area of the product development lifecycle our products address. In addition, we included a set of solutions to address Agile, traceability, and test-driven development.
• Events – We’ve been attending more trade shows lately, so we’ve put together a page to tell you which shows we’ll be at and what we’ll be doing there. Stop by a show, grab your Seapine swag, and see what’s new with TestTrack, Surround SCM, and QA Wizard Pro!
• Videos and Blog Entries – The solutions and product pages now include more video and blog entry links. We have been busy creating informative content and the new web site does a better job of showcasing it.

Explore our new site and let us know what you think! (And yes, we’re still working out the kinks, so if  you see anything that looks a little wonky, please let us know that, too.)

Watch the following video to learn how to use stress testing and see an example of how an application’s behavior changes when certain stress features are enabled.

That, folks, is serendipity.

Penn and Teller

Side note: Years ago I saw a live show of Penn and Teller. And Penn did his juggling broken bottles bit where he takes bottles, typically liquor bottles, then breaks them on stage, and proceeds to juggle their broken remains. This gives a sense of authenticity to the audience as he’s doing something real right before your eyes. He even says something to the effect, “I do this trick all the time, but for real, THIS time these bottles broke in a REALLY difficult way.” That’s classic magician stuff, build the excitement even if the words aren’t true.

How does this relate here you ask? I honest to goodness, cross my heart and hope to die, REALLY did find a regression bug while researching this blog post. For real.

The Surround SCM Track Changes feature is, in a nutshell, a way to quickly determine which branches a specific code change has been promoted or rebased to. You choose the code change either through the revision in a file’s history, or my preference, by the TestTrack issue, a changelist, or a label the code has been associated with.

For our Seapine ALM Reporting Platform product we use InstallAnywhere as the installation technology and, like all our development files, the installer project file is stored in Surround SCM.

When I did a history command on the installer project I noticed this:

It looks like I made some changes to the installer in June on a child branch as the result of a defect, but they were never promoted to the mainline. This was probably because I had already made changes to the installer file on the mainline and didn’t want to clobber those changes.

To make sure, I selected the revision of the file where I attached it to the defect and clicked the Track Changes… button.

Sure enough there is no record of this change in the mainline.

As a quick aside, I could search by changelist, defect, or label by changing the “Track changes for” drop-down selection.

Clicking the Select button while “Defect” is chosen in the drop-down gives me the trusty TestTrack browser dialog where I can use filters and all that good stuff.

See, searching by the defect number, #164, gives me the same result. To completely overuse a magician metaphor, there’s nothing up my sleeve here.

To make sure that I had applied the change to the mainline back in June, I first look at the setting described in the defect for the file on the 2011.1 branch:

A quick look at the 2012 version and I find that it is the exact same uh-oh. I never applied that change to the mainline. This is a regression defect and one that QA will be more than happy to re-open when they find it. I’m not going to give them the satisfaction though.

A quick update to the installer project file and I’m ready to check in, making sure I also attach this check in to defect #164.

If I do a track changes on defect #164 for the mainline branch, I see my change. Note that I don’t see original code change from the 2011.1 branch because that revision was never promoted. However, because I’m using the TestTrack integration and I attached all my changes to the same defect, I can still find everything. (Lesson here, integration is very good.)

So there we go, code check in, regression bug squashed before QA had a chance to find it, blog post written, the only thing left to explain is how Track Changes worked under the covers in the depths of the code. That’s easy.

It’s magic.

Peter Varhol, Seapine Solution Evangelist, will give a presentation on “Integrating Testing into Agile Development.” Peter will talk about testing and the role of testers in Agile methodologies, with a focus on integrating testing into an Agile practice. He’ll examine traditional testing practices and how those practices should adapt to achieve the goals of a chosen Agile methodology.

Martin Kochloefl, Seapine Solutions Consultant, will present “Guidelines for Software Testers in an Agile Era,” in which he explains how both testing and the role of testers change in an Agile development environment. Martin will discuss how managers can help testing teams adapt to those changes, with the goal of effectively integrating testing with development to create one cohesive team that consistently delivers quality software.

About the Conference

Software Quality Days is one of the biggest conferences on software quality. This makes it a must for anyone interested in software quality and testing.

This professional symposium and congress offers a range of comprehensive and valuable opportunities for advanced professional training, new ideas and networking with a series of keynote speeches, professional lectures, exhibits, tutorials, etc.

The top quality lectures and tutorials as well as a mixture of cutting-edge scientific topics and valuable practical lectures make this a pinnacle event in the field of software quality.

What is Agile anyway? This question is answered in the Naked Agile section of the class. Many people have made the mistake of confusing Agile with Scrum. It’s important to understand that Agile is not Scrum—Scrum is one Agile methodology among many. While Scrum is a good method, it is unfortunately often sold as the Agile pill to cure all ills. To truly be Agile, teams need a deeper understanding of the philosophy behind Agile methodologies such as Scrum.

In the Naked Agile sections, students learn about Dr. Edwards Deming and his impact on Lean manufacturing through his Plan, Do, Study, Act model. After planting the seeds of Lean, we turn to the Agile Manifesto, where Agile theory and practice takes root. Students learn that Agile is not about any one method, but a set of values and principles. The class reinforces these values and principles through group exercises and discussions. We wrap up the Naked Agile section by busting some common Agile myths, such as “Agile methods lack quality” and “Agile methods mean cowboy coding.”

Internalizing the Agile Manifesto through in-class exercises

Next month I’ll cover another section from the Agile Essentials for Project Teams class. Is there a section you‘d like me to provide more information about? Let me know and I’d be happy to oblige.

1. I refactor and try to get rid of as much code as possible. The less code I write means the less bugs I can write. (Awesome.)
2. I nearly always forget to add new files I’ve created to Surround SCM. (Not awesome.)

At best item #2 means the continuous integration server yells at me. At worst it means one of the other developers yells at me and I need to buy donuts for breaking the build. And I don’t even like donuts.

Some enhancements that are coming in Surround SCM 2012 are tailor-made to help with these two things. First, let’s take a look at what happens when I’ve edited a couple of existing source files and added a new one to the project. I generally do a recursive filter like this before I check in:

This is where I usually get into trouble by forgetting to add new source files. The two files I edited are shown because they’re already in Surround SCM. But I haven’t added the new file yet, so it isn’t listed at all. A better way to see what has changed is to select a parent repository that I am working from and click Differences.

This brings up the Working Directory Differences dialog and, as you can see, not only are my two edited files shown but my brand new file is highlighted in green. Somewhere a donut baker is weeping into his batter at all the lost profits.

All those buttons on the right side of the dialog show actions I can perform. First things first, I can add the new file with the Add button.

All the usual goodness is there, I can add as part of a changelist (which as I’ve written before I always do) and I can attach to TestTrack in case this is all part of bug fix. Same thing applies for checking in the changes to my two edited files with the Check In button.

So that’s all awesome and my coworkers and continuous integration server will be much happier with me. Now, let’s take a quick look at another option on this dialog that helps when refactoring. Let’s say in this case, along with the other changes we’ve talked about before, I’ve renamed a file on my local machine. Surround SCM is tracking that file and has its complete history, but it is tracking it by its old name.

In this example I’ve renamed qttextcode_symbian.cpp to qttextcodec_symbian_deprecated.cpp. My recursive filter, knowing only about the original name and not the new _deprecated name, shows the original file as missing. The Working Directory Differences dialog, however, shows a different story.

You can see that Surround SCM shows that my originally named file is missing locally on my hard drive and my renamed file is missing on the server. If I select both files, the Resolve Missing button becomes active and allows me to choose to either rename the file in Surround SCM or rename it locally on my computer. I choose Rename Server… because I want to rename the file that Surround SCM is tracking.

The Rename File dialog opens, so I can rename the file to its newly refactored name. As always, this is changelist enabled so I can do it all in one big atomic shot.

So pretty cool stuff, but I do a feel a little bad for the local Mason, Ohio economy because of this feature. If you are driving through hit up one of our bakeries and buy a dozen or so donuts. Tell them I sent you and that I’m sorry I haven’t been in lately.