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[article]

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

By Brad Appleton, Steve Berczuk, Robert Cowham - December 14, 2008
Summary:
As a piece of Christmas cheer we bring you a traditional olde English carol. It is believed that this particular carol was sung to programmers by configuration managers to earn additional money during the Christmas season. The lyrics (including mention of Mil-STD-973 and CMM among other themes) are reputed to date back to the 15th century although the author is unknown. We have been lucky enough to track down a recording of this traditional carol—click the start button.

With apologies to "God rest ye merry CM men" (and some poetic license taken with the history of CM!)

God rest ye merry, programmers
Let nothing you dismay
Remember to configure
All code you write this day
And save it all by CM’s power
Lest it might go astray
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy  

In Mil standard 973
First was this concept born
And publish’d to the wider world
Upon this blessed morn
But from developers worldwide
It did receive but scorn
O tidings of ...  

From SEI at CMU
A lead assessor came
And unto certain coders
Brought tidings of the same:
How Pennsylvania was home
To CMM by name.
O tidings of ...  

“Fear not,” said the assessor,
"Let nothing you affright,
This day we see CM, it is
At level two by right
To free all those who trust in it
From Change’s power and might."
O tidings of ...  

The coders at those tidings
Rejoiced much in mind,
And left their programs building
In tempest, storm and wind:
And went to Pittsburgh straight away
This great CM to find.
O tidings of ...  

Meanwhile some agile programmers
Were iterating sprints
And satisfying the bus’ness
With contin-u-ous int-
egration of their mainlines
And releases a-plent(y)
O tidings of ...  

And ITIL 3 it came along
With greater emphasis
On CM in the scheme of things
For change and for release
That service transition
Was an important beast
O tidings of ...  

Now to CM sing praises,
All you within this place,
And with true love and brotherhood
Each other now embrace;
For CM is important
To keep things safe in place.
O tidings of ... 

About the author

Brad Appleton's picture

Brad Appleton

Brad Appleton is an Enterprise Agile+DevOps leader, coach & manager, and seasoned DevOps/ALM/CM solution architect at a large Fortune 100 company. Currently he helps organizations and teams scale, adopt and apply lean/agile development methods and DevOps/ALM/CM practices and tools. He is co-author of Software Configuration Management Patterns, a columnist for the AgileConnection (and CMCrossroads) at Techwell.com, the Streamed-Lines branching patterns, and a former section editor for The C++ Report. You can read Brad's blog at blog.bradapp.net.

Connect with Me

  • http://linkedin.com/in/BradAppleton
  • https://twitter.com/BradApp
  • https://www.facebook.com/bradapp
  • http://bradapp.blogspot.com/

About the author

Steve Berczuk's picture

Steve Berczuk

Steve Berczuk is a Principal Software Engineer with experience as a manager, Scrum Master and technical lead in Boston, MA. The author of Software Configuration Management Patterns: Effective Teamwork, Practical Integration, he is a recognized expert in software configuration management and agile software development. Steve is passionate about helping teams work effectively to produce quality software. He has an M.S. in operations research from Stanford University and an S.B. in Electrical Engineering from MIT, and is a Certified ScrumMaster. Contact Steve at [email protected] or visit berczuk.com and follow his blog at blog.berczuk.com.

Connect with Me

  • http://linkedin.com/in/steveberczuk
  • http://twitter.com/sberczuk
  • http://blog.berczuk.com

About the author

Robert Cowham's picture

Robert Cowham

Robert Cowham has long been interested in software configuration management while retaining the attitude of a generalist with experience and skills in many aspects of software development. A regular presenter at conferences, he authored the Agile SCM column within the CM Journal together with Brad Appleton and Steve Berczuk. His day job is as Services Director for Square Mile Systems whose main focus is on skills and techniques for infrastructure configuration management and DCIM (Data Center Infrastructure Management) - applying configuration management principles to hardware documentation and implementation as well as mapping ITIL services to the underlying layers.

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