Enforcing development policies
A key part of managing the configuration management aspect of a software
project is establishing and enforcing development policies. In a parallel
development environment, it is crucial to establish rules that govern how
team members access and update shared sets of files. Such policies are helpful
in two ways:
- They minimize project build problems by identifying conflicting changes made by multiple developers as early as possible.
- They establish greater communication among team members.
These are examples of common development policies:
- Developers must synchronize their private work areas with the project recommended baseline before delivering their work to the project shared work area.
- Developers must notify other team members by e-mail when they deliver work to the project shared work area.
In base ClearCase®, you can use tools such as triggers and attributes to create mechanisms to enforce development policies. UCM includes a set of common development policies, which you can set through the graphic user interface (GUI) or command-line interface (CLI). You can set these policies at the project and stream levels. In addition, you can use triggers and attributes to create new UCM policies.