Concept: Workspace |
Workspaces refer to storage areas where developers can implement and test code in accordance with the project's adopted standards in relative isolation from other developers.
Relationships
Related Elements | Configuration & Change Management
Main Description
On small teams, shared workspaces may work fine, but coordination of activities between team members must be done to avoid conflicts. A preferred approach is for each developer to have an insulated storage area for the development and testing of their work products. This workspace should be insulated so that destabilizing or conflicting changes made by others do not interfere with progress but it should not be isolated to the extent that the developers work is un-available to the team. In addition, insulated workspaces can be created for each test phase such as integration testing and system testing. This approach to workspaces provides the following benefits: Developers can develop, test, and debug software changes without being affected by others team members' changes until they are ready. When ready, a developer can update his or her insulated environment in order to test the latest changes from other developers. With separate workspaces for integration and system testing a team could use a methodology that ensures changes have passed integration testing before other developers get them, minimizing the time spent solving integration problems. For example, if two team members check-in incompatible changes without realizing it, and both changes are immediately available to everyone on the team, all team members might waste time trying to resolve the broken build. Conversely, if both changes must pass integration testing before being distributed to others, the problem could be found and fixed by one person with minimal disruption to the team. By setting up an integration area to collect and build the latest changes the team can integrate early and often, a well-known best practice for reducing overall cost and delivery time of software projects. The system test area, used for preparing releases, is insulated from developers' ongoing changes and only contains configurations that have passed integration testing. This lets you control the content of the release while still enabling developers to continue working.
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