Common Questions: Source Control

This week’s topic: Source Control

Source Control is a big topic. To date, the best article I've ever read on branching strategy was a best practices article by Perforce (circa 2003). Today, we're not talking about that, we're talking about all the features source control supported in Arbortext Content Manager (Windchill).

PTC uses Windchill internally for software configuration management for all software and documentation. Multiple versions exist simultaneously (5.4 is under active development at the same time 5.3 is). Documentation is associated with the software build so that it can automatically be built dynamically.

Question: Modification model

Can multiple writers edit the same XML file (topic) at a time?

Answer:

Only one user can check out the content for editing. Other users can see the content but ACM  eliminates the problems caused when multiple users overwrite each others work.

Question: Branching and version management

Does ACM support branching in version management?

Answer:

Yes.

Question: Simultaneous branching

Can ACM support multiple concurrent versions of the same component that must exist simultaneously (branching)?

Answer:

Yes

Question: Complex Versioning

Can ACM support complex versioning without automatically switching from version 1 to version 2 whenever you check a topic in?

Answer:

Yes

Question: Versioning Components

Can you version a commented document or component?

Answer:

Yes

Question: Configurations, Baselines

Can you label all content that has been included in a released publication? In other words, can you publish the same configuration of the publication as necessary and also provide an audit trail making it easy to determine the configuration of a particular publication (traceability)?

Answer:

Yes.