SCM brings developers under control

Software configuration management (SCM) is a topic rooted deep in the world of developers but in recent years it has surfaced to a wider constituency, thanks in no small part to the interest of firms such as Microsoft and Borland.

Part of the reason for the new interest in SCM is that software development has become a far more distributed phenomenon and therefore requires a greater level of management control. Today, with outsourcing entrenched and offshoring an established, if controversial, aspect of development, bringing transparency and rigour to the development process through versioning, reporting, synchronisation and change tracking is recognised as critical.

Christopher Seiwald founded Perforce Software in 1995, aiming for a system that was fast and simple so developers would not find it a hassle to use. Today, Perforce is used by a huge number of development teams at many blue-chip commercial software giants and organisations, including BBC News Online, Deutsche Bank, Barclaycard, JP Morgan and Domino's Pizza.

Despite this line-up, Perforce has been conservative in its approach to marketing, focusing on gaining high levels of renewed business. "We've always tried to aim low and hit rather than aim high and miss," Seiwald said.

Seiwald is also phlegmatic about the competition Perforce is facing, most notably from Microsoftís Team Foundation Server program, although he accepts that its new rival has plenty of funds to improve its product.

"We were convinced all they had to do was move into our space to kill us but it took them so long to develop and [the product] is very awkward," Seiwald observed. "You have to drink the Microsoft Kool-Aid to use it but their paperclip budget is bigger than ours in total."

As for Subversion, the open-source SCM program, Seiwald recognises that it is popular but said it has "scalability problems".

Seiwald remains unpretentious on the subject of SCM. "Some people are using this new term application lifecycle management but, to me, ALM is just the new word for 'process'," he said. "I don't know how to tell you to develop from beginning to end but I can say how it happened. Developing software is not like building a bridge where there's a clearly documented way to do it. There are still so many ways to build software that [a broadly applicable methodology] is going to be at least 20 years off."

What SCM provides, Seiwald said, is an audit trail that can help subsequent iterations of software. That said, he has his own distinct ideas of best practice.
"How it looks, making it pretty to the eye, is very important for the people who come after," Seiwald said. "You write it once but anyone has to be able to read it later. You can be too clever and then it becomes impervious to improvement."