source code control

[Joey Oravec]

Has anybody used VI engineering's VISTA suite or other source code control?

I was looking for a solution to source code control that would allow me set
specific configurations (1.0, 1.1, 2.0, etc..) and also to selectively
review/apply/remove check-ins from a specific user in case somebody has a
bad habit of breaking things.

Something like winCVS would support versioning directly as long as I never
use LLBs. The ProG SCC supports a nicer changelog, but still chokes on LLBs,
doesn't support branching, and in just a brief test I ran across some
flakiness (check system status not set to close window when complete, etc).
Neither option seems great so far.

Has anybody used VISTA, or do you have advice for anything else better? Any
changes coming for
LV 7.0 maybe?

-joey

[Randy_H]

Joey,

I would recommend Perforce. It has great integration with LabVIEW (it keeps -- and will -- get better with later and later versions of LabVIEW). It also runs on all of the platforms that LabVIEW runs on, a great plus. Lastly, I would never recommend using SCC and LLBs together. It would be the same thing as storing your C application in a few zip files and checking them in and out. When you are ready to release something to a customer, I would then branch off and create an LLB of all of the VIs at that level. Then you have less files to have to install in an application.

Randy Hoskin
Applications Engineer
National Instruments
http://www.ni.com/ask

[Dennis_Knutson]

I agree with Randy about the use of LLBs and source code control. I use Visual SourceSafe and briefly used CVS. None of the SCC packages will handle an LLB. An LLB should just be used for distributing files. A corrupt VI in an LLB can make the whole LLB unreadable and once you have to recreate a whole LLB instead of a single VI, you'll never keep all of the source code in an LLB again.

[Joey Oravec]

"Dennis Knutson" wrote in message
news:5065000000050000000FE60000-1042324653000@exchange.ni.com...
> I agree with Randy about the use of LLBs and source code control. I
> use Visual SourceSafe and briefly used CVS. None of the SCC packages
> will handle an LLB. An LLB should just be used for distributing files.
> A corrupt VI in an LLB can make the whole LLB unreadable and once you
> have to recreate a whole LLB instead of a single VI, you'll never keep
> all of the source code in an LLB again.

I completely agree with the comments -- it is just like checking in a zipped
collection of source code, and the SCC is in general helpless to track
changes of things inside.

The reason I brought up LLB handling is that NI's instrument drive
r
checklist mandates a certain configuration of LLB. It is possible to control
the individual vis, but then impossible to check-out a tagged version and
distribute directly. It would still have to be bundled as an LLB and run
through the checklist to verify compliance. Of course it's easy and routine
to package the driver properly (directories to LLB, set vi tree and
application example as top-level). But it's just something to consider; only
source, not packaged project, can be checked-in.

-joey

[wiebe@CARYA]

Hi,

Does anyone one you have tried the FreeVCS (http://www.freevcs.de/)? I have
downloaded it, but have never tried it...

Regards,

Wiebe.


"Joey Oravec" wrote in message
news:1049905653.991885@netrek.net...
> Has anybody used VI engineering's VISTA suite or other source code
control?
>
> I was looking for a solution to source code control that would allow me
set
> specific configurations (1.0, 1.1, 2.0, etc..) and also to selectively
> review/apply/remove check-ins from a specific user in case somebody has a
> bad habit of breaking things.
>
> Something like winCVS would support versioning directly as long as I never
> use LLBs. The ProG SCC supports a nicer changelog, but still chokes on
LLBs,
> doesn't support branching, and in ju
st a brief test I ran across some
> flakiness (check system status not set to close window when complete,
etc).
> Neither option seems great so far.
>
> Has anybody used VISTA, or do you have advice for anything else better?
Any
> changes coming for LV 7.0 maybe?
>
> -joey
>
>
>