Thread: software regression

Does anybody have any suggestions for a software regression hunting tool?

Dunno Bob, but I find Version Control the one and best way to handle any software regression issues.

EDIT: You may want to try BuildBot. Never used it myself. But sure seems like a good option for automated testing, especially if you move on to use test cases. It integrates well with most version control systems. You'll need python.

I never managed to get the tortoise svn to work. Is it worth the effort? I've actually read pretty good reviews but the problem is I am lazy.

Perforce is by far the best revision control system I've used.
Others I've used include: Visual Source Safe, CVS, Subversion, & git.

Originally Posted by BobMcGee123

I never managed to get the tortoise svn to work. Is it worth the effort?

Absolutely! My favorite one. Especially because of its integration with Explorer which facilitates normal operations. And it's SVN... I swear by it, especially in comparison to CVS. The manual will help you through the lazy phase since it includes a tutorial.

Other than SVN, there's only another version control system I truly enjoy. That's Bazaar. I use this one on my Linux machine.

Originally Posted by Mario F.

Absolutely! My favorite one. Especially because of its integration with Explorer which facilitates normal operations. And it's SVN... I swear by it, especially in comparison to CVS. The manual will help you through the lazy phase since it includes a tutorial.

To me, CVS & SVN look exactly the same. What's the difference?

Originally Posted by abachler

I like Visual SourceSafe, but im partial to MS developer products. Its not free of course, so you need the developer version of Visual Studio.

That would be my 2nd choice. Perforce isn't free either, but they do let you use it for free for up to 2 users, so it's great for using at home.

Originally Posted by cpjust

To me, CVS & SVN look exactly the same. What's the difference?

The only differences of note (IMHO) are atomic commits and easier branching. Other than that, they're the same old garbage.

I swear by Perforce. If I didn't have that, I'd probably use git or darcs.

As to the initial question... You can't do regression testing without test cases.

Originally Posted by brewbuck

The only differences of note (IMHO) are atomic commits and easier branching. Other than that, they're the same old garbage.

You would think there's more to it, right? Well, there is.

Atomic commits per se are already a big change from cvs. For one it ensures the integrity of the branch and allows for easier/safer roolbacks.

But, there's also

- metadata moving and renaming of files, which allows for versioning of these important operations and that is missing from cvs.
- support for binary files,
- the ability to use Apache as a server with just a couple of modules (which allows for repositories to be viewed and operated with the help of a browser without the need to install anything else),
- Certain optimizations. I wouldn't call branching easier (although it could be said so because of the next difference), but faster. In fact, branching is not to my liking in SVN. Once I branch, I need to keep track of the the revision number somewhere (I use the revision log) and merge manually. Blah! But along with commits and updates, branching benefits from a few optimizations that allow for faster operations and less bandwidth usage. Commits and updates, for instance, only send diffs.
- An easier to use command line syntax.

Maybe the last two are not on your top list. Dunno. But the first 3 are real advantages over cvs. Meanwhile SVN mission statement was never to create something new. The objective was to make a better CVS aiming at those areas that were missing and simplifying operations.

In any case calling any of the major versioning control systems in existence (perforce, cvs, svn, bazaar, git, ...) garbage, seems to me unjustified. These are widely used VCS's, some of them helping to maintain large scale projects. If you don't like SVN, fine. I don't like perforce. I just don't think of calling it garbage.

EDIT: Although CVS may be the exception indeed.

Originally Posted by Mario F.

You would think there's more to it, right? Well, there is.

No disrespect (you know I respect, right?) but that sounds like "My car's better than your car because it has windows, door locks and a steering wheel."

I don't think a source control system of any kind is worth a standing ovation. I do appreciate how easy or difficult the SCCS makes it to implement a particular team strategy. For ten years I used RCS to manage a million-line codebase. I couldn't even see how much it sucked until afterward. I only had a brief stint with CVS before ending up with Perforce, not by choice in the beginning but definitely by choice now.

Seriously, all I'm trying to say is you've got a fairly clear hierarchy of suckage in the SCCS systems out there. I'll leave it there

I'll have to agree with you on that one.

> For ten years I used RCS to manage a million-line codebase.
You should share your bash script

Well it's easy to hate things you haven't tried, or rather "talk them down". I haven't tried git yet, but I know it's wonderful

Originally Posted by zacs7

I haven't tried git yet, but I know it's wonderful

You should see the problems Git keeps giving me! I'd rather use SVN than Git.

My main beef with Git spurs from one of its advantages.

Git performance improvements over most VCSs has near zero impact on the type of projects I work, since these are essentially small size projects demanding relatively small repositories and having no one else but me doing commits and updates. All in all this isn't much of a reason to not choose Git.

But Git is not an easy tool to learn. I struggled hard to learn how to perform the simplest tasks. An this type of commitment to a VCS is really something I don't want for me. Especially when I can go by with much easier alternatives without significant loss of features. These tools are to me necessary evils and the least they get in my way, the better. One of the reasons I enjoy so much SVN and especially Bazaar.