Karl Seguin

LOL

I am a huge ClearCase/ ClearQuest hater. I just came off of a project where I have to guess that problems with ClearCase cost us REALLY ~15% of a developer's time !! Awful - as you described.

A few years ago I was considering the RUP thing for an organization. We eveluated all the bits and bops and - we thought it was too expensive for an un-intrgrated pile of stuff. You seem to have found the same thing - albeit via a bit more expense and pain.

One thing I found amusing was when we asked Gartner about purchasing an SCM Solution - the one thing they said NOT to consider was ClearCase - that it was a 10 year old code base and it required LOTS of manpower to manage it. Ugh!

Anyhow - Down with Rational!!!

-Chris

I couldn't agree more... Rational products are on my top 10 list of software that I get a headache from running (for real).

I wholeheartedly agree - Rational tools are very cumbersome to use
There are few scenarios where VSTS is a little weak (compared with ClearCase) - but hopefully MS will catch-up by V.next.
And XDE is even worst – it is probably the worst UML editor I've seen - it is a actually a step backwards Rational Rose.

At some point, Rational was the only decent choice available at the pricepoint they are. That explains their fan-following to a great extent. There are still a lot of larger shops and managers that believe in RUP, and most project management shops will insist that you learn RUP for that very reason.

For technical reasons or not, you cannot ignore Rational. You may not like them, but you can't ignore them. :)

I agree with Sahil
I am new to Rational, and I know they have problems, but for the benefits that they provide, I believe they have way more advantages, than disadvantages
maybe I don't know a lot of tools in the industry, and maybe there are better tools
What really blows my mind in rational, is the relations between the requirements, the specifications, the development, and the maintenance

I am big fan of it, and honestly, after I get used to it, I don't like to work without it

I beg to differ.
Agreed, Rational **modeling** products are abysmal. RUP is nothing but an elaborate scam to squeeze money out of PHB's via licences and consulting fees (it's called death by a thousand licences) and Rational Rose/XDE is the ultimate testimony that top down modeling via RUP is doomed (I have yet to see a more buggy, resource-hog, stupid, anti ergonomic POS than XDE. It's even worse than Lotus Notes, which says a lot)

But Clearcase is another story altogether. Agreed, it's complex (you need a Clearcase guru to set it up and maintain it), it's not suited for small teams, and now there are many alternatives (Subversion sticks to the mind) but when set up right, it's a joy to use.

First, Clearcase was not written by Rational. Atria used to publish it before being bought by IBM (and unfortunately IBM just sat on the product, not many useful updates to Clearcase in years). So Clearcase has none of the braindead quality standards of Rational.

You point out the poor integration with Visual Studio. It's true. But I think VSS is to blame here. Let's face it, Visual Studio can't interface properly with *any* SCM apart from SourceSafe. And SourceSafe is a joke. If you're not using the VSS straightjacket, many SCM concepts just don't map to VSCCC craziness. And we're better off with the CLI or an integration in Explorer (see TortoiseCVS, TortoiseSVN or - surprise - the very good Explorer integration with Clearcase).

Using a CLI is a bonus. With a slight learning curve (ok, an insanely steep learning curve, but you end up storing sample queries) you can query your source base with a SQL-like precision (like, mmh i'd like to get every .cs files checked out between these dates, that are identical in thse two branches and get the diffs from a third branch). You don't need these kind of things every day, but it sure helps when you do. For the run-of-the-mill stuff, a right click in Explorer on your dynamic view does the trick.

One of the things I've learned to love is the way Clearcase show the files. You define a set of rules (the config-spec) of the files you want to see, based on date, branches, versions, and you get a mapped drive showing the right combination of files. It's a godsend when doing continuous integration/automatic builds. You can work on many branches at the same time, and the branching/merging is a breeze. Since it's a network drive you automatically see any check-in. You can also mount a private view from another dev machine. When more than 60 people are working on a set of projects, this can be really useful. That being said, the network drive thingy can make your VS and your network crawl.

I've worked in several environments where Clearcase had been bought and set up by PHB's, and the teams ended up working like they had no SCM. But when properly set up, by (very) knowledgeable people, Clearcase rules. (if you don't mind dropping a lot of money, yes)

One of the huge cons of Clearcase is its inability to work properly multi-site. For my own small to medium scale projects, I'd go for Subversion any day.

I quite like Rational stuff.  I work at a place that has something liek 5000 developers and our site-license means we don't feel the price pinch that other places would feel.

I've never tried to integrate them with .net or visual studio though.  we're a WebSphere shop.

I have felt the Rational pain before. I'm glad that I only had to suffer for around nine months with it. The only thing that I did like which it had over VSS and TFS was the ignore whitespace changes in the code comparer.

I got someting worthwhile from Rational...

At a previous company I worked for, we would get "loyalty points" for working overtime, attending training etc... So I had to attend Clearcase/ClearQuest (can't remember which is which) training.

Nasty product. Nuff said.

I never got to use Rational in production, but the loyalty points were enough to trade in for a small microwave.

Thank-you Rational!

Even though Rational's suite of products is my second most hated piece of sotfware ever, it did introduce...

I thought you all might find this YouTube video funny that is based on SCM tools.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmOYEe9JqAI

Enjoy.

Josh

We call it ClearWallet.  It's out lived its design and IBM knows it!  They are losing market share, and accounts left and right to more progessive SCM products or simplier models. UCM is a poorly developed. Base ClearCase is tolerable. I've seen it deployed with inexperience help and causes a castrophe.  However, I've deployed it in companies that are satisfied. But no matter how you slice this - it's still ugly!

-ClearCase/ClearQuest Administrator