[ILUG] Seeking Alternatives

[Ger Donohue]

> However -- on to Clearcase ;)
> 
> Clearcase is dire on any platform IMHO -- use CVS if you're cheap, or
> Perforce, which is a commercial product, but worth every penny.  Since a
> few people don't agree, I'll outline my reasons:
> 
>   - Clearcase is very expensive -- Perforce is cheap and CVS is cheaper.
> 
>   - P4 is much easier and clearer to use; the command-line interface is
>     well-designed and intuitive, esp. for branching and merging.
> 
>   - P4 has a free cvsweb-style GUI, which is very useful and works well.
>     I hear Clearcase has a nice GUI on Windows, but the UNIX interface is
>     pretty much all command-line, and it's non-trivial to view a file's
>     entire history.  Last time I used Clearcase I had to write a web-based
>     reporting system for it; there's a free one for P4 already (phew).
> 
>   - Clearcase, in most installations I've heard of, needs a full-time
>     admin.  Perforce certainly doesn't.  It's also a lot easier to
>     sysadmin.
> 
>   - P4 has a cool merging system which (in my experience) has led to
>     hands-free merges -- which I'm sure you know is a big win -- although
>     it is possible to confuse it so it has to drop back to the traditional
>     diff3-based merge system used by CVS and Clearcase.
> 
>   - multi-site development in Perforce is a matter of using "ssh".
>     Clearcase, due to its NFS-based always-online-to-the-VOB architecture
>     requires Multi-Site which costs megabucks.
> 
>   - P4 doesn't triple your hardware spend or network traffic like
>     Clearcase does; this is because view files are held on disk; network
>     accesses only happen when you choose to update your view.  (Clearcase
>     will load view files via NFS from the VOB server if you haven't
>     checked them out -- so the VOB server becomes a huge NFS server for
>     every machine that's using a view into that VOB.)
> 
>   - looks like P4 have the clearcase migration path sorted.

Quick one.

Can Perforce or CVS run in a mixed mode envoirment. 

i.e. VOBS or storage area on one platform (unix) and VIEWS available to
another platform (Windows NT/2000) either locally or over network.

Clearcase may have a heavy System Admin load but support from Rational
is execellent and documentation is very good and all in the one place.

Guess you get what you pay for!!

Regards Ger