Perforce
Perforce Software

Perforce 2002.2—fast and unobtrusive—is a tool made by developers for developers. This cross-platform-software configuration management product makes it simple and easy to create a quick branch in the source code tree, and makes it trivial for developers to try out that “quick test” on a throw-away code branch without interrupting your train of thought. Speed is enhanced by use of a streaming protocol between the central code repository and a proxy cache local to developer workstations. Changes to the new code branch are given a group identification number that makes it simple to back port those changes into other code branches, should the quick test in fact prove absolutely valuable. Super-swift telephone support and scalability to more than 1,000 developers round out this exceptional developer tool.

—Roland Racko

MKS Integrity Manager with MKS Source Integrity
MKS

That mouthful is hereinafter abbreviated IM/SI. Sheesh! SI is a complete enterprise-level configuration management tool. You’ve got file-level revision control, named versions, branch-and-merge. But SI provides the polish that lesser tools lack. For example, branching and history management are handled by GUI tools, and you can choose whether to lock files on checkout (the RCS model) or after changes (the CVS model). All features are designed to work remotely. Rather than dictating details, IM supports whatever rules you have in place. It lets you ensure that all the check boxes get penciled as a change or feature moves along, using Web pages, reports or e-mails. Using SI and IM together, you can identify the changes to code resulting from a single feature request, and treat them as a unit for QA, builds, rollbacks and updates.

—Rick Wayne

Select Process Director
Select Business Solutions

Select Business Solutions (formerly Aonix) is known for its Nomad and Component Factory tools. Another member of that family, Select Process Director Plus 2.0, combines Select Perspective—a set of best practices for component-based development—with project management tools supporting those practices (including the SEI’s Capability Maturity Model). An XML repository at the heart of Process Director provides tools for incorporating existing Microsoft Project and Rational Unified Process files into process documentation, thereby obtaining baseline data against which to measure future progress. Project progress can be viewed with either GANTT charts or Process Thread Diagrams.

—Warren Keuffel