Gated checkins?

[GSS4]

Hi,

I am planning on using Plastic SCM with VS2010. I know that VS2010 (or is that TFS2010?) has the ability to do gated checkins (so code which passes some checks for quality, reliability, exception handling etc), can be checked in.

Is it possible to do something similar with Plastic SCM? Where would this responsibility fall (VS2010, Plastic SCM, other?)?

Thanks

[psantosl]

Hi Blade1,

As I blogged here (http://codicesoftware.blogspot.com/2008/03/continuous-integration-future.html) long ago commenting on Duvall's book on Continuous Integration, my feeling is that "gated checkin" is the "poor's man approach" to "task per branch".

Thing is, systems unable due to architectural issues to implement branch per task, try to come up with whatever alternatives they have to avoid checking in code.

My approach would be: embrace branch per task (http://www.plasticscm.com/infocenter/quick-start/intro-task-driven-development.aspx) and run tests on a per-branch basis. Don't be afraid to checkin often, as often as you need, in your own task-branch... then test the branch when it is done (when you would checkin on TFS... but in Plastic you would have already checked in n times).

pablo

[GSS4]

Hi,

Thanks for the link.

I'd like to do all of that in an automated fashion, so how would that work?

Also, maybe I am being slightly slow but I want to get the process right:

- Get a branch of the code from mainline (bit like a backup copy).

- Make changes.

- Run tests.

- If tests succeed, check back in.

This will be done for every task/feature/agile story.

Is this the right approach? Problem with this is the 3rd step (step 3). If I run the tests etc, the tests will run again when the code gets checked in and the build server kicks off.

Thanks