Can fogbugz track case dependencies?
FogBugz has long supported case "relation", which creates an ad hoc link between cases simply through adding "case 1234" to any note. Downside: these are not removable, and this persists into FogBugz 7. (We tried to figure out how to do it right, but just ran out of time, so we left current behavior.)
FogBugz 7, newly released, has added parent-child hierarchy, to allow you to split up a master case into its constituent parts, or to aggregate similar requests under one umbrella case.
FogBugz 7 also offers milestone dependencies, where one milestone cannot be started before another is complete. This only applies to the scheduling features of the software. We don't actually prevent anyone from working on cases in the dependent milestone.
We feel these features represent the real world of dependencies as they exist among different parts of a project.
We intentionally did not implement any sort of Bugzilla-style blocking, for several reasons. First, it can be horrendously inefficient, allowing people to ignore work that they could easily do if it was in front of them. Second, it can cause a morass of interdependencies. Third, it also allows the use of the software as a social bludgeon, ("I can't start stubbing out functions until Jeff has finished his mock-ups.") which is something we try to avoid. We make social software... in that we prefer to let social problems be solved socially and software problems be solved with software. The intentional omission of blocking or hard dependency between cases is part of this philosophy.
That said, FogBugz 7 is highly extensible, with plug-ins, tags, custom fields, and lots of other goodies. If blocking is what you want, I'm sure someone will be able to cobble something together.
Yes and no. Cases can be linked to each other, but if you're looking for a tree of cases (prerequisites and such), you need FogBugz 7 or later.
If you're using FogBugz 7.3 or greater, you can now use the Case Dependency Plugin, which was released in April 2011.
You didn't define what you mean by dependencies exactly, but if you mean that the resolution of one case requires the resolution of others - formally the answer is no. However, you can refer to other cases from a base case and FogBugz will track the cross references. For example, if you say "see case 2031" in the text of one case, the 2031 portion will turn into a hyperlink and both cases will now report that they refer to each other (both forwards and backwards). It's a pretty cool feature actually.
FogBugz 7 now supports sub-cases. This may or may not solve your problem, depending on how you want to handle it.
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If you have to make several programs should depend on an interface (protocol, API or framework), is it possible to make the interface with XP (eXtreme Programming) style?
I have to disagree with Mark Ransom. The methods and workflows you choose will of course affect the design of an application. But it's up to the developers to set up a policy how to handle interface changes, BC breaks, or how to avoid them. Also it's up to you how to apply the many faces of XP, saying you don't need to "refactor mercilessly" if it doesn't fit.
Agile methods live from their users feedback, and feedback vice versa will make a more precise product possible. Done right, your interfaces will mature in a real world. Then the interfaces completeness and stability is only limited by it's bandwidth and quantity of application. Of course you need a good catalyst that keeps you on track. Which is more likely a problem.
Also the test first approach usually results in a precise, convenient and user (programmer) oriented product. Which is in my opinion a big step towards stability.
One of the bedrock principles of XP is frequent iteration. This can be useful in terms of adding features, but it conflicts with the desire for a stable interface. An interface that is constantly changing is an interface that is constantly broken.
Just ask anybody who has had to deal with the interfaces to some popular web sites.
How certain are you about the need for a framework and about what that framework needs to support?
One of the first things an XP process might do is challenge this assumption, saying YAGNI.
If you after all do need a framework, it should emerge from refactoring, and then contain only the parts that you actually need.
So I've been tasked at work to write windows services to replace some old legacy VB6 WinForms apps currently running as services, consistently repeating tasks day-to-day. To give some general background, they have there own state machines built in to handle decision basing and not utilizing threading.
A lot of the senior developers here thought it would be worth a try to look into WorkFlow to replace the state machines rather than write my own business logic and try threading it programmaticly. So it's WF vs. the "Old College Try" I suppose.
My concern is that there aren't many books on the topic, and since it was implemented in .Net I've heard very little about it being used. I brought this up at work and another developer mentioned that it's because Biz Talk never really caught on and it was designed for that.
So is it broken? Do you think it will be supported long enough to not worry so much? I don't want an ill-functioning process injected into my services, my new babies at work, and then have WF's keel over. Leaving me with having to replace them with my own code in the event of an emergency; which does not seem like much of a grand scenario to me.
Any suggestions, recommendations would be super.
Workflow Foundation is used in Microsoft SharePoint, so I think they will continue supporting it.
There is an open source project called Stateless by Nicholas Blumhardt. It is quite flexible and very light weight. See my SO answer for details.
I chose this over Windows Workflow simply because I could define a state as State and thereby persist the state of my workflows back to the database using SubSonic. Configuration consists of one XML file. If I need to add tasks, I simply add nodes to the XML.
The each state can have a series of triggers that once satisfied will advance to appropriate state. This framework is a single assemble and fits nicely in your domain logic.
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Lately I have seen our development team getting dangerously close to the 'second system syndrome' type ideas while we are planning the next version of our product. While I'm all for making improvements and undoing some of the mistakes of our past, I would hate to see us stuck in an endless loop of rewriting and never launching anything.
Is there a good design / development method that lends itself to building a better version 2.0 while avoiding second system scenarios?
I have experience the second system syndrome from both sides as a customer/sponsor and part of a development team.
A root cause for problems is when the team latches on to an Utopian vision of version 2, such as the desire to make the new software "flexible". In this scenario everything is abstracted to the nth degree. For example, instead of data objects that represent real-world entities a generic "item" object is created that can represent anything. One flawed idea is that we can build in so much flexibility into the software to anticipate future needs, that non-programmers will be able to just configure new capabilities. Often one goal such as "flexibility" overshadows the effort to a point that the resulting software doesn't work.
A balanced practical consideration of usability, performance, scalability, features, maintainability, and flexibility goals can bring the team back to earth. "It would be great if..." should be prohibited from the vocabulary of the team. The Scrum backlog is a good tool and the team should be heard saying often... "Let's backlog that...we don't need that for version 2."
"I would hate to see us stuck in an endless loop of rewriting and never launching anything."
Which is why people use Scrum.
Define a backlog of things to build.
Prioritize, so that things which lead to a release are first. Things which should be fixed are second.
Execute sprints to get to the release. Execute a release sprint.
Get someone who has written at least three systems to lead the project.
Try to focus on short delivery cycles, i.e. force yourself to deliver something tangible and useful to the users every few weeks or month. Prioritise the tasks based on their value to the customer. This way you always have a usable, functional application with satisfied users, while under the hood you can refactor the architecture in small steps if you wish (and if you can justify the need for it - that is, towards management / the customers, not just teammates!).
It helps a lot if you have a stable build process with a good suite of automatic (unit / integration) tests.
Agile development methods like Scrum do this, and they are warmly recommended. But of course it is not always easy or even possible to adapt such a method in your team. Even if you can't, you can still take elements of it and apply it to your project's benefit (maybe without even mentioning the words "agile" or "Scrum" publicly ;-)
Make sure you document the requirements as well as possible. While obviously you need to also manage what gets into the requirements to avoid over-designing, having a fixed scope helps prevent developers from running off with ideas or gold-plating what needs to be done and it helps keep management or clients from introducing scope creep. Define all requirements and how scope changes will be addressed.
I'm all for short development cycles (make sure you're writing tests) and agile methodology, but neither of those is a shield against second syndrome system. In some ways it's easier to keep adding on feature after feature if you're working in short sprints without stopping to look at the overall picture. Use agile practices to build the simplest thing that works, then keep adding your other requirements as simply as possible. Remember YAGNI, because when you build a system a second time, that's when you're most likely to build something you're sure you'll need at some point, something that will make the system "extensible" so there never has to be a third build. It's the best of intentions, but the road to hell and all that.
You can't get close to second system syndrome. Either you're in it, or you're away from it. You'll know when you're in it, but only after wasting a lot of resources.
Tips are: know about it (so basically we got that covered already). It's invaluable information to know what a "second system" is, and even more to have some experience with that. I think we all have some experience with that, hopefully benign.
That knowledge will often make you think twice and you'll find a solution without venturing into second-system limbo.
PS: Also know how to use your current system, that includes, maybe documented solutions, and other documentation.
Focusing on the system architecture should help e.g.
Having documented interfaces which support "loose coupling" between sub-systems
Having documented design decisions (avoid re-hashing previously beaten paths)
Hence, without going for an all out swap, the current system can be "upgraded" with more appropriate interfaces to help future growth.
Another good way to focus: assign a $$$ figure to each feature and prioritize accordingly ;-)
Anyhow, just my 2cents
I up-voted S. Lott's answer and would like to add some more suggestions:
Deliver a working product to your customer as frequently as possible. Iterations lasting between a few weeks and 2 months are ideal. Agile methodologies, such as Scrum, lend themselves well to this.
Use FogBugz for feature and bug tracking. Its features are very practical for agile projects. FogBugz allows easy prioritization according to releases and priorities. If your team enters their estimated levels of effort for each task, you can also use this to calculate reasonable ship dates.
Prioritize which features you will develop according to the 80/20 rule (20 percent of the features will be used 80 percent of the time) and the most bang for the buck. This helps keep the system as simple as possible, helps prevent feature bloat, and saves development and testing time.
Give similar thought to both new features and bugs when you determine the priority of an issue. One point of the Joel Test is "Do you fix bugs before writing new code?". In most shops this doesn't happen, but do not make debugging the system an afterthought. Also, keep a working copy of the old system to compare against when bugs are found on the new system.
Also factor in the level of effort required to maintain, and if necessary rewrite, existing code. If you have not already done this, give the team some time to code review whole files that they find troublesome to change. If the system's code was difficult to maintain the first time, this will only get worse and cause your team to spend more time on new features down the road.
It can never be avoided at its entirety. But being cautious could alleviate the problem.
You should formulate some thumb rule based on the vital parameters (scarcest resource) that define the success of the system. For example, reducing potential number of bugs might directly decrease operational cost (potential service calls to support center). But this might not be the case in every other systems. Another example, scarce use of CPU, memory and other resources might be beneficial in some cases but there could be environments where they could be available in abundant.
So simply to avoid "temptations", identify the scarcest resource (time, effort, money$ etc) and consider implementing only those that exceed threshold value.[f(s1,s2...) > threshold]
Despite the iterative development, I would emphasize on how technical debts are handled.
Links that are related to this:
Tech Debts: Effort Vs Time
Tech Debt Quadrant
My group is moving to Team Foundation Server soon. Actually, I'm heading up the effort.
One of the things you get to decide is which methodology you're using - Agile, CMMI, etc.
Thing is - I have no idea what methodology we use. By which I mean, we're not actively using one. And I'm not familiar enough with Agile or other methods to know which, if any, happen to apply to the way we're doing.
Is there some default methodology? As in, if we go through some very blunt process (get requirements, code, test, push to QA, have QA test, push to production) is there even a name for it?
And as a bonus, with TFS, what is the penalty for picking the wrong one at the outset? How hard is it to switch gears later if we decide to go Agile or something?
There's no major penalty for switching methodoligies - you just pick a default one when you install, and you can choose the one you'll use for any given project. In fact, it only has to do with how TFS configures the Sharepoint project page initially - you can add whatever you want to your page once it's created, so if you decide to change a project's methodology, it's not difficult to do.
For the two that TFS gives out of the box (Agile and SCCM/Waterfall), it really a question of your process - do you release "early and often", with smaller packages releases as bugs come in, or do you run your projects in large iterations, with a release much more infrequently, but with obvious milestone releases?
A question to ask (though not exactly accurate, but always helps me): Does the product have version numbers that will be meaningful to the end users? For example, many websites are Agile, as they're constantly releasing improvements and patches, and don't often have huge improvement/overhauls, whereas a product like MS Office has a meaningful version number (2003, 2007, etc), which is more likely SCCM.
If you don't have a stated methodology, it's a great time to develop one - decide which release cycle makes sense to you, create a project in each and review what TFS sets up for you automatically - do the progress indicators and Sharepoint pages make sense? Is there anything obvious missing?
If you can't discern a methodology, then you are using an ad-hoc methodology. It may be similar to an existing methodology (by accident). Note however that following a methodology is not the same as being successful. I have seen plenty of methodology heavy projects that failed, and plenty of "seat of the pants" projects be resounding successes (if perhaps in need of a bit of refactoring when the dust settled).
Changing methodologies depends on your culture more than anything. Institutions tend to resist change, and do some individuals. However, it is again situation dependent: if the existing situation is obviously broken, an institution can sometimes make snap changes that surprise everyone.
Some methodologies are "heavier" than others: those are harder to change to or from. Even Test Driven Development is "heavy" in that adopting it after the fact will mean adding a lot of tests to old code. Most real world transitions simply add the testing as files are edited for other reasons. Likewise, moving from TDD to some waterfall style would require a lot of code to be documented in large disused binders.
The most basic method tends to be your iterative or "waterfall method" because you just go from step to step to step. It doesn't seem to be very popular anymore, though.
I am re-writing and/or consolidating a bunch of my "app framework" classes (basic mainform, about box, locking routines & purchase linking, auto-update, datamodule initializer, etc) -- Basically, I have a number of small potential shareware apps that I'm wanting to get out the door, and want to re-use code where I can, as well as build a framework for later apps to save time.
In one app I have auto-updating, I'm using LMD's WebUpdate, and am reasonably happy with it, but given that I'm re-vamping everything, I thought I'd see what the consensus is for "best approach" on this. I don't mind paying for commercial, nor using open source if that's best... just would rather not reinvent the wheel. (I've read: Delphi: How do you auto-update your applications?)
What is the best Auto-update component for Delphi Win 32 apps?
I use TmxWebUpdate. It's free, simple and easy to customize. I also own TMS Component Pack with TWebUpdate, but never really found a good incentive to switch.
I use TWebUpdate from TMS Components and am very happy with it. I haven't used LMD so unfortunately am not able to provide a comparison.
TMS also supply a whole raft of other components so if your re-writes require any else, especially if you want some shiny UI enhancements (TMS have a range of iPhone-style components) then the website is certainly worth a visit.
They seem fairly active in their support forums (although I haven't had need to use them for the WebUpdate component) and they have a fairly regular release cycle.
I have heard good compliment about TWebUpdate from Tmssoftware
also torry has much components for the same job, some are free and others are commericals.
Now what's the best?, it's depend on your needs, you already using one from LMD, which is a good company and I have very good experince with their components, but never used this one.
If you need a specific functionality, or you have some problems with the current one you are using, it's will be better to list them, so you will get a better answers, but it's hard to define the best, because every one has different experience and views.
I use TWebUpdate myself. It works, but the docs are a bit limited and it seems a bit buggy sometimes.
I have looked into LMD's (I have their full component pack), but it seemed to be much more limited than TWebupdate.
I'm also using TWebUpdate, and have to echo stg's comments on quality of support (good), and quality of documentation (spotty -- it's old, and doesn't always reflect their new features immediately).
You'll also find some places that stress the "roll your own" approach.
Remember that part of the auto-update issue is the tools that you will need to create the update "package" at your end. TMS Software makes a tool available for use with TWebUpdate, and it's reasonably well done. In my case, I'm "misusing" the component to deal with multiple files so that I can refresh additional related libraries, text files, etc. The update builder tool isn't really good for that. So there's some manual editing. But the updating part works well.
I'll also add a caution that you need to be careful with updates in Vista (and probably Windows 7). Writing to the protected places in the Program Files hierarchy was problematic for me. You may want to check that out with whatever component you use.
Have you considered Appwave from Embarcadero. It's not free and I don't know the price.