Re: Version Control in Embedded Systems

People should and will use whatever's available as long as it integrates with their development environment. Things like CVS, which has the benefit of being free software, should be enough for all but the most massive projects in embedded-dom, I think.

Backups don't come even close to actual version management, mainly because they don't give you a usable interface to document *what* each version actually is, or *how* and *why* it was changed relative to its predecessor.

You should still to backups and archival, of course --- but of the VC software's repository files, not of individual work copies.

Visual Sourcesafe here.

Best Regards John McCabe

To reply by email replace 'nospam' with 'assen'

Clearcase here, PVCS in the previous job, used Visual SourceSafe before in a previous life.

H snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com (Yaakov) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com:

If you mean for the firmware written on the host destined for the embedded device, of course. CVS is the cheap and quite capable choice for either Windows or Linux based development.

Of course!

I used RCS for many, many years. Most of the RCS users I know have switched to CVS. Now I use MS Visual Suck Safe. Definitely a step down from RCS or CVS. Other people I know use perforce, or that other big commercial one with "VOBs" (what's it called?).

Everybody I know who does embedded SW uses some sort of revision control system.

nospam wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Or for Win32 there's WinCVS + cvsnt

We do casual backup to a server, which is CD-Rom backed up every Friday for permanent archiving (in the cave under my garage.)

Version control is different: when a firmware version is "done", it is formally packaged on a Zip or CD: all sources, batch files, related FPGA config files, ROM image files, and a serious README.TXT explaining the whole thing. All that is formally released to the company library as a letter revision, treated exactly like an engineering drawing... none of this silly 7.04b nonsense. Manufacturing may only assemble a product from released drawings, as called out on a released BOM. The master Zip or CD then goes into the cave, too.

We also archive the tools (assemblers, compilers, FPGA stuff, etc) used to produce any released firmware. That has prevented a few near-nightmares in maintaining "old" (2 years or so) products.

John

I'd like to think that everyone is using some sort of source version control for their projects. Also it should be used routinely and not just for nightly backups.

We use PVCS Version Manager, but SourceSafe, CVS, RCS are all applicable.

Ken.

All valid. It amazes me that such an investment in the source code is not protected as a matter of course. As you have implied, it's the tip of the iceberg -- we also use PVCS Tracker for bug tracking.

Ken.

We're using Clearcase. We have a really large, distributed development team, and it makes a big difference.

As you said, if you have a small team, it's simpler (and *much* cheaper) to use something like CVS.

Regards, Allan.

Why would you not?

We use CS-RCS for VC and PR Tracker for defect tracking. Both cheap and effective if a bit clunky.

TW

You mean is anyone not using formal version control systems for embeded systems? As embeded systems are usually difficult to upgrade to a new version - the quality levels needed require one to use some sort of formal version control (and configuration control).

We use Telelogic Synergy.

-- Stephen Baynes CEng MBCS DTG-S&S, Philips Semiconductors Southampton Tel +44 23 80316431

Point taken, Paul, but did it need to be in triplicate?

Steve

No problem. I misread it as being an ad posted 3 times - mea culpa ;).

Steve

Apparently a change at Demon meant that multi-line newsgroup lists weren't being processed properly.

Bizarre.

John Larkin wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Even when working on a small script on my own, the ability to save versions every few minutes if appropriate with a comment to say what was working, what I'm about to do, just makes everything go much better. I can back out changes, and delete sections (rather than just comment out) knowing that I can get them back if needed.

I can't really imagine not using VC for anything.... They exist for DOS too and can be just as easy to use.

Well, different strokes. I can't imagine doing a separate backup every few minutes, or what I would do with the resulting, say, 1500 backup files that I'd generate during a 2-week-long embedded programming project. I guess I'm old-fashioned: I think about the problem, write the code, test it, release it, and I'm done.

My experience working with programs and organizations big and small is that the fancier the tools, the worse the code.

John

versions

out

too

That sounds funny, but my impression is the same.

I think the point of versions/backup/comment is to keep track of design decisions and be able to backtrack when one is later proven incorrect. 1500 backup files isn't the case with a decent source control system. It is just

Rufus

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