Configuring Eclipse to use the RTC SDK

Last night I was poking around trying to figure out how to write a demo with the Rational Team Concert SDK. My first attempt failed. It wasn't until I found Ralph Schoon's excellent blog post on using the SDK that I finally figured out how to do it.

Since Ralph's post is long and it refers to an even longer PDF, I thought I'd present an abridged explanation:

1. Download the RTC SDK and server. At the time of writing, 4.0.3 is the most recent release, so  you might as well grab that. 
2. Extract the SDK to ~/rtc-sdk.
3. Start Eclipse on a fresh workspace. 
4. Set your target platform by:
1. Open the Eclipse preferences and search for the Target Platform page.
   
   
2. Click "Add" to create a new target platform. Initialize it with "Nothing."
   
   
3. Edit the target platform.
   
   
4. Add an Installation. Point it to ~/rtc-sdk.
   
   
5. Set your target platform as default.
   

You're done! You can now write programs that use the RTC SDK.

To verify that your Eclipse is properly configured, download the attached project, and copy it into Eclipse. Get your server configured and started, then edit Start.java to use the URI of your server and credentials of the user you created.

You can run the test application with the "api demo" Eclipse launcher. It logs into the server, creates a repository workspace named "meow", and then lists all of the repository workspaces owned by the current user. At the very least, you should see "meow" in the Eclipse Console:

Expected output in a properly configured Eclipse

When should you start using a source control?

My eyes were immediately drawn to this thread on Ars Technica: "When should I make the first commit to source control?", with answers from Stack Exchange users.

I'm from a team at IBM that is building a source control. So getting my opinion is a bit like asking your stock broker what he or she thinks about the merits of investing on the stock market. Of course I'm convinced the source control should be a transparent part of your development - you should not even have to think about it while you design and edit your code. It should just be there when you're in a bad state and you want to return to a know good one. Aka, you should not even ask yourself when to make the first commit...

A source control doesn't have to be in the way of your dev work. It knows when you save files, and in many IDEs and products out there, it even knows what task or defect you are working on. It can work in the background, safely pushing your changes from your local drive to a remote machine, so you can crash your hard drive or pursue your work from a separate machine in the evening.

A source control is now a basic feature like syntax highlighting, code assist or refactoring. It's a given that whatever you've done, you can review and roll back in time, fork and try something else. Suspend your current work, resume some other on-going work. Work with a buddie, with a team. And when you can do all that without thinking about having to use a source control, then we've succeeded.

The first tip I give about using a source control is to check-in frequently. By that I mean storing your changes frequently in the source control, which isn't the same as giving every one of your changes to your team. Many source controls have a staged approach - you can version control your own changes in a private way then control when you find them useful and good enough to be shared with others.

In the 8 years of RTC Source Control, we tested different source control workflows. In the early days, we were really keen on something called auto check-in. In 1.0, that feature was on by default. You save a file. Bing. That change is safely backed up on the RTC server, in your private workspace. Some of us were wondering - why bother asking the user when to manually check-in? Why not doing it automatically for every file that is modified? It turned out to be a very divisive matter. 

• Some really thought that was the way of the future - just have every change you do automatically be replicated in your backup on the server. 
• And others really wanted to stay in control as to when their changes leave their local drive and become part of the source control's memory.

I was initially a strong proponent of the auto check-in workflow. I always thought the ones opposing it were a bit like the mathematician Gauss as described by Abel: "he is like the fox, who effaces his tracks in the sand with his tail". Like you don't want others to know all the wrong paths you've explored before you actually perfected the fix for a defect... That's too bad, because e.g. RTC Source Control has a way to highlight the initial and final versions in a change set and make the intermediate versions mostly hidden in regular operations. 

So why did we turn off auto check-in by default? Because many users were hit by some of its drawbacks.

• Network latency when you work over a poor wifi connection at the airport
• Big mess when a mistake you do in your IDE refactors 1000 files.
• Your history is filled with meaningless changes (if you use auto-complete of change sets) or with huge change sets if you forget to help the tool and complete your change sets from time to time

I did experience all these annoyances myself and was convinced that it wasn't appropriate for a majority of users in its current form. It's fantastic for those users who like the convenience and remember to complete their change sets at appropriate stable moments. I don't use auto check-in anymore. But I frequently check-in my changes so that I can easily go back to a previous good state, and in RTC we make it easy with a simple "Check-in all" button. I only deliver my changes to the stream used by my team when it's ready - after a green personal build for example.

If the source control you use makes a commit sound like a complicated, slow and cumbersome task to perform, you're likely missing the greatest strength of a source control. It's invisible to you when things work, and it's there when you need it. So, in conclusion, next time you create a project, put it under version control right away... Version control is good for you even if you don't intend to share with other peers right away.

Latest videos and articles about RTC SCM

For some of us working in RTC SCM, it's a big snow day, we're not just dreaming about a white Xmas :-) For our developers in locations where snow is a rarity, you cannot imaging the joy of clearing up your drive way... This said, time to reflect on what we've done and published for our RTC users.

Since the articles and videos we listed last July and August, much more has happened in the last  five months.

For CLI users, check out these three videos from Shashik and Sridevi.

• Enhancements to the command line 'diff' command  in Rational Team Concert 4.0.1
• Getting/setting properties of SCM artifacts using Rational Team Concert SCM CLI
• Managing the flow targets of a workspace or a stream using Rational Team Concert SCM CLI

If your source code base is large - or should I say, huge - and you have to deal with many variants, you want to carefully think about how to organize it in your SCM. Here are tips illustrated with the popular Android OS code base, from John.

• Managing variants of the source code for Android OS using Rational Team Concert

How you use your source with your local tools and how you version it in RTC can be straightforward or very sophisticated. These two articles go to great depth in load workflows.

• Loading Content from a Jazz Source Control Repository in Rational Team Concert 4.0
• Loading with Load Rules in Rational Team Concert 4.0 and later

Yes, process is built-in with every component of RTC - Work Item, planning, build and of course source control. If you're a scrum master, component lead or project manager, this article from Evan is a must read.

• Source control process recipes for Rational Team Concert

And if you want to upgrade to the latest version of your VS IDE, we got it covered... Vandana gives an overview there.

• Rational Team Concert introduces support for Microsoft Visual Studio 2012

For tips on how we review changes when fixing defects and how we set process conditions to ensure appropriate reviews are in place, have a peek at this blog post from myself, and its two videos.

• Reviewing code changes with Rational Team Concert

See you in 2013! We've got more in the pipeline...

Try out the latest 4.0.1 RTC SCM in the jazz.net sandbox

It's really easy to get a feel for the latest RTC SCM 4.0.1. The jazz.net sandbox gets you up and running in seconds. All you need is a jazz.net login account. You'll have your own project area hosted on jazz.net, ready for your trial of RTC and SCM.

Create your jazz.net sandbox

1. Go to www.jazz.net/sandbox . You may have to create a free jazz.net user account if you've never been there before. That will also allow you to open work items and ask questions on the forum.
2. Pick the option /sandbox2 - you'll get your project hosted on the very latest RTC 4.0.1 server
3. Give a name to your project area - e.g. mine is called chrisx's 4.0.1 project.

Upload content into your jazz.net sandbox

Click on Source Control / Welcome to Source Control. You're ready to try our latest SCM!

Your project area is mostly empty to start with. It does come with a default stream, into which you can add folders and files. From the Welcome to Source Control page, click on Show Streams and navigate into the one stream listed there. It has one component which contains no files or folders. Adding new files and folders is very easily done through the Web UI. Click on the Add folder icon as indicated below, give it a name and hit save.

Once that folder is created, you can upload new files, etc. Here below we created a new text file named 'readme.txt'.

Invite others to your sandbox on jazz.net

Being alone isn't the greatest way to try a collaborative tool. So go back to www.jazz.net/sandbox, click on sandbox02/ again. This lists all your project areas, including the one you have just created. Click on the Invitations button and bring your teammates to your trial party. Once they accept your invitation, they will be added to your project area. They will be able to see the files you have added earlier to that default stream and start collaborating with you through RTC Source Control.

Try out the other (non Web UI) RTC Source Control clients

At that point you and your co-workers may want to try out other RTC clients such as the Eclipse RTC Client, RTC Client for Microsoft Visual Studio, RTC Shell (which integrates into the Windows Explorer) or the Command Line Interface tool. You can download the desired client (and your own server if you want to go beyond what the jazz.net hosted sandbox provides) at https://jazz.net/downloads/rational-team-concert/.

As an example, I downloaded and installed the RTC Shell client. This client integrates into the Microsoft Windows Explorer, so I can easily sync up files and folders loaded on my local drive and collaborate with my team members. After the installation, you just accept the team invitation (see below) which is available from the jazz.net sandbox (see above).

I followed the recommendations of the 'Accept Team Invitation' wizard. I created a repository workspace from the stream I had been using earlier and loaded its content under my local drive. It created the expected Documents folder and readme.txt file I had added through the Web UI.

This is showing the RTC Shell client integrated into Windows Explorer. This content was loaded from the RTC server hosted on the jazz.net sandbox. I can make changes to these files and folders with my local editors (Notepad etc.), check-in and deliver them so that others in my team can access them.

Summary

It's really easy to get a quick feel for our latest RTC SCM, with the jazz.net sandbox. And if all you want is to play with our Web UI, you have nothing to download!

Icons used in Rational Team Concert Source Control

The Eclipse client for RTC, RTC Client for Microsoft Visual Studio and the Web UI use specific icons to represent SCM artifacts. These base icons are enhanced with extra visuals relative to their status in certain views (e.g. the Team Artifacts view, Pending Changes view, Repository workspace editor, etc.). Here's a list of the basic icons and their variants used in the SCM. If you are not familiar with any of the terms used below, please try out Good practices and key workflows for Rational Team Concert Source Control users for appropriate references.

Stream

 Repository Workspace

Snapshot

 Baseline

Component

1. Component (if shown within a repository workspace, also indicate it is loaded or partially loaded in my sandbox)
2. Component owned by a project area
3. Component owned by me
4. Component owned by a contributor who isn't me
5. Component (if shown within a repository workspace, also indicate it is not loaded in my sandbox)

 

Change Set

1. Change set (active i.e. not completed, not linked to any work item)
2. Current change set (active i.e. not completed, auto check-in will default to this change set)
3. Completed change set (not linked to any work item)
4. Completed change set linked to one work item
5. Completed change set linked to two or more work items

If you are puzzled by other SCM icons, please drop a comment below with a link to a screen capture (e.g. attach it to the work item 40464). Hope this reference will be helpful to you.

Note. For icons inside the Pending Changes view, explanations are also provided here.

working with different currencies

One of the things that I like the most about Rational Team Concert is how we solve problems which cross-cut across the developer's perspective.  What this means is that the change sets that a developer produces are linked to work items, which often have a particular process workflow to them.  The change sets are also captured in snapshots via builds, so we have traceability from builds right through to the work item or plan.  We almost take this traceability for granted, having used the product now for > 5 years and counting.  This traceability provides another benefit that may be subtle to some people.

The linking of work items to change sets allows for users of different backgrounds to talk about the same problem in language that they are most familiar with.  We have found that many people indicate that they "deliver work items" to the stream when they are done.   The work item tends to be where the discussion happens, and where consensus is reached.  The code artifacts are derived from that understanding.  So when talking to a development manager, they are interested in knowing that the work item is closed (and the fix delivered) rather than the specifics as to how the fix was done.

So while developers may talk change sets, their bosses may talk work items, or change requests.  Which is why we try and write features which deal in both currencies, like Locate Change Set.

As you see in the above screenshot, Locate Change Set allows users to work with either change sets or work items in order to ensure that people can answer questions using the terms and currencies they are most comfortable with.

Similarly, when someone compares builds, the comparisons come back in the forms of change sets or work items.  We have numerous features in Rational Team Concert that work like this.  When you allow for users to answer questions using the concepts they are most comfortable with, you create an ease of use that really helps to allow different roles to enjoy using the product.  

Preview - Gap detection when reviewing changes (Eclipse & VS clients)

A developer gets often asked to review the changes associated to a work item. What if some change sets are missing? The new Change Summary view detects inconsistent situations automatically for you.

In the above example, the reviewer selected the change sets associated to the work item to be reviewed and clicked 'open'. The Change Summary view shows which files are modified by these change sets. The file MobileWebView.java is flagged with a special decoration - a red square and a description 'in 2 disjoint change sets'. What is so special about this file?

The reviewer decides to double-click on this element. Instead of a compare editor showing the changes to that file, a prompt comes up.

 

The file MobileWebView.java is modified by 2 disjoint change sets, i.e. change sets that aren't related to each other because they refer to unrelated versions of MobileWebView.java. The Details pane comes up automatically in this case, showing the change sets that have a gap as shown below. The dependency graph is actually disconnected (broken green and red graphs).

The reviewer can ping the developer on the work item and ask him or her if they have forgotten to associate a change set to the work item. In this case, the developer had associated a change set to a different work item by mistake. After moving it to the correct work item, the reviewer could review the three change sets together correctly.

Note. In certain situations, disjoint change sets are expected and perfectly valid (e.g. developer had to do multiple change sets intertwined with deliveries from other team members). The reviewer will simply review each disjoint change set through the Details pane.

Note. Prior to 4.0.1, there was no Details pane. Disjoint changes were represented as multiple nodes in the Change Explorer view with no identifier about which change set they originate from. In 4.0.1, the Change Summary pane and the Details pane provide more comprehensive information in these situations, making code review both efficient and safe.

Note. Visual Studio client figures the same details pane support in the Change Summary view, as illustrated below. This feature was jointly developed in 4.0.1 by a feature team working simultaneously on the Eclipse, Visual Studio and Server development. In prior releases, different component teams were responsible for adopting new features, usually in different milestones.

Note. Expect to be able to try out this new feature with 4.0.1 M4. As we are transitioning toward feature teams and continuous delivery, I am experimenting with previewing our latest work on this non official blog. Go to jazz.net for the latest milestone build and official new and noteworthy. There is no guarantee a preview will make it to a stable build.