The Seapine View

CLI parsing got you down? Good news, we’ve got an API for that. We introduced a cross-platform C API with Java and .NET wrappers in the Surround SCM 2010.0 release. All three versions of the API have the same functionality – anything you can do from the C API you can do from either Java or .NET. “What can I do with the API?”, you ask. Well,  you can Add a file, Checkin, Checkout, Get, Undo Checkout, Search, Create repository, Create branch, Promote, Rebase, Manage labels, Add user, Rollback files, Share, Break share, and much more.

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I built a domain-specific language (DSL) in my text editor so that I don’t have to remember all of the details involved in WordPress blogging. To write this article I type :save-as-blog-draft in vim, my text editor. I don’t have to mess with the details of logging into WordPress, picking a post to edit, and then manually pressing the Save Draft button. Setup took about an hour and by now I’ve blissfully forgotten the manual labor involved in blogging.
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I got a call from a TestTrack TCM user who asked if you could schedule scripts to run on a continuous scheduled basis, rather than just once. I responded that you couldn’t, mainly because each test run represents a single execution of a test, not a continuous one.

I asked the user for more details in order to better understand the need. He revealed that his group does automated builds and wanted to launch tests after each build and log those results in TestTrack TCM. He wanted to incorporate TestTrack TCM with the automated build process and did not know how to.  So how do you do it? Well the answer will vary depending on your process.
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For those of you that program in Java, there are newly generated TestTrack SOAP classes available for download from the Seapine Labs web site:

http://labs.seapine.com/wiki/index.php/Generated_Java_Classes#Download

As mentioned in the labs article, these classes were generated using NetBean’s JAX-RPC client (v 1.6). While there are other Web Service clients you can use, this is the one that I have been able to get consistent results with.
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When approaching a programming task using the TestTrack SDK, it is sometimes helpful to first think about how you perform the same task using the TestTrack client. The process is often very similar and can help you understand why things need to be done a certain way when using the SDK.

In this post, I will discuss logging in, so think about that process when you log in using the TestTrack client. The process is as follows:

- Open the TestTrack client.
- Select the server to connect to.
- Provide your username.
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From time to time the question comes up about how to move the defects from one TestTrack project to another. The answer depends on how different the projects are.

TestTrack has XML export/import and that is the preferred method. There are some key advantages to this method, namely the ability to move attachments and multiple instances of report by records and workflow events. The disadvantage is that, if fields or workflow events do not match, they are not imported. This is likely to be the case if the projects are different in field layout and workflow configuration.

Text export/import may be preferred if you have different projects because you can map fields. For example, you can import the value from the “Project” field in the source project into the “Component” field in the destination project. You have greater control over which fields are exported/imported.
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When companies look to invest in defect tracking and version control tools one of the first questions they frequently ask is “Do you integrate into Microsoft Visual Studio?”

This might seem like a very easy question to answer because, in short, the answer is almost always “Yes we do”.

But once people start to use the integration they normally have a ton of questions on how it works and how they would like it to work. I use Visual Studio 2008, Surround SCM, and TestTrack Pro on a daily basis so I decided to show some of the integration images with real files and bugs, as I believe that pictures speak a thousand words.
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Jeff Atwood recently explored the Pseudocode Programming Process and asks

“What’s your take? Is pseudocode a useful tool in your programming? Do you write pseudocode before writing code?”

His entry took me back to my software architect days at now-defunct Access Corporation (not the one that acquired Palm OS and BeOS). Back in the day (the early-nineties), we were working on a very large project to develop an engineering drawing image management system for IBM’s AS/400. Continue reading…