Hello everyone,

I am in the process of moving away from VSS. AccuRev has caught my eye, particularly because it is marketed as being fundamentally different from other branch / merge SCM products. Not being a big user of branches in VSS for obvious reasons, I am rather new to the whole concept.

What I'd like to ask the AccRev community is do you really think they've got something special here with the streaming approach, or is it just hype or fancy marketing? I'm continuing doing my own research into AccuRev, however if anyone would like to give an experience or two about using AccuRev, particularly in contrast to other leading products, I would really appreciate hearing your comments.

Many thanks,

Rod

Answer: Really good It's definitely not hype.

There is a Case Study on Ascade (my previous employer) on AccuRev's web site (http://www.accurev.com/scm-case-studies/Ascade_case_study.pdf), where I've listed the reasons for using AccuRev (Ascade was previously on VSS). I haven't got much to add, apart from the fact that the new 4.5 has even more powerful features, like crosslinks, symlinks and even stronger Change Package support.

Very briefly, I believe AccuRev is absolutely outstanding when you regard both expressive power (streams - including private streams, change packages, issue management, component support via crosslinks) and near-zero administrative overhead.

best regards,

/Tomas

I'm a 15 year vetran in the SCM field. I've used both PVCS and the Rational products extensively, as well many of the lesser-known tools. My job for 8 years was to walk into companies and setup new CM processes from the ground up - including selecting the appropriate tools, performing the initial installation, and defining the process and players.

AccuRev is not only completely different from any other toolset I've ever used, its also, without question, the most powerful, and most flexible tool. For agile development, I can't imagine any tool even coming close to the advantages AccuRev provides.

Per Tomas, the administrative overhead is extraordinarily low: both for the initial setup as well as for on-going support.

And to top it off, AccuRev does a fantastic job of supporting remote development - again without the horrendous administrative overhead of other tools.

Last week we started a new product version. This means I had to create the stream for this version, as well as populate the base code, add it to the workflow and setup security on it. It took me less than 15 minutes.

A recent audit by an external company of our development processes gave our SCM processes the highest possible rating.

I hope this helps to answer your question. I'd recommend downloading a trial version from the AccuRev website and trying it for yourself


Best of luck!

Thanks Tomas, Fran (and others who responded privately),

AccuRev certainly seems to have a loyal following among those who have used it. Just wondering, has anyone evaluated AccuRev against Microsoft Team Server?

We develop only using Microsoft products. Currently we're using Visual Studio 2005 and have both Windows and Web products. One of the things that looks good about the Microsoft products is the tight integration with their development tools, and the ability to enforce certain code and architectural standards across the code base from within the team system.

As far as I can tell AccuRev doesn't support these things?

Evaluating source control products is a big task!

Thanks everyone.

Rod

Hi Rod,

There are two huge gaps with MS Team Server that I've found, in my experience, to be critical.

1) meta-level visualization tools. Important? Yes. Once you have 'n' team members with 'm' releases and 'x' patches and 'y' projects... the formula for "what is happening Today?" or "Who is working on What and is it Ready?" rapidly becomes too complex or impossible to piece together in realtime with raw-text-lists-of-data (ie. folder views). Tree views of "intelligent" directory copies ultimately requires each developer to be unnecessarily well-versed in details of release management -- as a software engineer myself, this is a complete waste and misalignment of my time and skills.

2) intuitive and easily changeable process enforcement. Your "process" in MS Team Server can be modified with the Microsoft Solution Framework (MSF) SDK. You want process? Sure. You get 2 out-of-the-box. Yes. Two. MSF for CMMI and MSF for Agile Software Development [url=http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/teamsystem/msf/]http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/teamsystem/msf/[/url]]. But of course you say, MSF is "highly customizable, scalable, and fully integrated." Sure. There is a very lengthy, 6-article series on how to modify your process . Do you have an XML editor? You'll need one. [url=http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/teamsystem/msf/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnvs05/html/msf_customprocess.asp]http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/teamsystem/msf/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnvs05/html/msf_customprocess.asp[/url]]

With AccuRev, their stream browser gives you a complete visual and interactive picture of all private workspaces, which projects they are associated with, and which codelines each project is associated with. Did I mention private workspaces? One example of SCM best practices out-of-the-box (local-copy-merge is yet another). Furthermore, you can work either at the file-by-file level or at the issue level. Who care that 156 files are fixed in the next release? You really care that 12 defect fixes and 3 features are IN. Furthermore, if you care or need to know, AccuRev tracks the specific [patch] versions that comprise the given issues. Have I mentioned yet that this is all visual?

Need to change your process? Need to add a Code Review or Audit step? Want to do FDD? Hold back an entire feature? Adding an Outsource team and need sub-Integration and Testing phases before going to the local mainline? All Drag-n-Drop in AccuRev with Streams. Of course you can do it from the CLI as well, if you're a unix/vi type like myself... but seriously, changing your process is visual and trivial.

HTH - dave

QUOTE:

AccuRev certainly seems to have a loyal following among those who have used it. Just wondering, has anyone evaluated AccuRev against Microsoft Team Server?

Actually, I'm doing just that right now.
In my not so honest opinion, if you look at the SCCM part alone, AccuRev kills TFS.
But as you say, there are some integrations that are nice for VS2005 users.
However, I believe it's possible to have both; i.e. using most of VS2005 + TFS but replacing the CM part with AccuRev. I'm working on that right now; stay tuned

/Tomas

QUOTE:

What I'd like to ask the AccRev community is do you really think they've got something special here with the streaming approach, or is it just hype or fancy marketing? I'm continuing doing my own research into AccuRev, however if anyone would like to give an experience or two about using AccuRev, particularly in contrast to other leading products, I would really appreciate hearing your comments.

I don't know about special, but it is certainly not only hype. What I do know is that we have checked accurev against perforce and a few other similar priced tools and it came out top, because it does the things we expected from a SCC tool best. (And I still believe, after nearly 2 years, that it does everything it does very well.)

The visual stream hirarchy is seemingly something rather unique and it IS working great for us. It wasn't the deciding factor for us though.