Single vendor tool chain, or mix & match?

I have started working for a small company which got way put of their depth on their first big project (embedded telems).

Now, I am looking at a whole bunch of tools and Processes to take us forward, including, but not limited to: =B7 How to handle version control, as we launch multiple variants of the core product =B7 Build management, especially with regard to multiple projects =B7 Abstracting the operating system, as everything is currently hard coded to use VxWorks. I'd like to leave an option to switch to Symbian, a Linux based o/s, or other alternatives. This is particularly important to introduce a good, uniform automated test system (probably CppUnit), as most debugging is currently done on target by adding printf() (!) =B7 A decent trace log system =B7 A decent memory pool =B7 Nightly builds with automated regression test & report generation =B7 profiling to identify and improve performance =B7 A decent IDE (possibly Eclipse), as everyone currently uses their favourite text editor to write code and almost no one unit tests on PC (some of them have *never* seen a debugger !) =B7 Generally getting the software to be more robust and simplifying it (refactoring), by using report generating static analysis tools to show dependencies (class structure for the C++ parts (the rest is in C)), include file hierarchy, function call tress, etc, etc (even just running DoxyGen, even though the code has no DoxyGen comments provided a lot of insight). Maybe a decent source browser, plus as many other tools will help understand the woefully under-documented code.

As you can see, we have our work cut out! Help or advice on any or all of the above is very welcome.

Since we have budget restrictions, we are looking at tools to reduce manpower requirements, partly by automating things and partly by improving quality so that our engineers don't have to spend most of their time chasing after bugs. Also, preference is given to free or cheap tools (for instance, although we are doing telecoms development, the license fee for Telelogic Tau is thought to be beyond us). Development is currently under windows, but the company is willing to switch to Linux and rough half of the developers have at least used Linux, even if they have not developed under it (my intent is to identify our requirements, identify tools which meet then and choose the o/s which offers those tools)

Now of for the big question - I realize that there is no one correct answer (and that pieces of string have differing lengths), but is the general consensus for a Single Unified Theory, by using a suite of related software from a single vendor, or for a pick & mix approach?

Once again, any and all advice is welcome (recommendations for tools, web sites, books to read, etc, etc). Thanks

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Baron Samedi
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