Visual Studio and AccuRev

It has been a while, but work grabbed me with little more than a week between two large projects. We shipped out XMap 5.0 and I jumped right into the selection, purchase and install of new development tools. The upgrade from Visual Studio 2003 to Visual Studio 2005 was actually quite a bit more painful than the upgrade from Visual Studio 97 to Visual Studio 2003. The improved ISO C++ compliance is conceptually great, but when you have a fifteen year investment in C++.... Well, suffice it to say that we realized we had a fair amount of non-compliant code kicking around in the repository.

The more engaging part of this task was replacing our weather-work Visual SourceSafe 6.0d source control control system with AccuRev. We last evaluated AccuRev when 3.5 was the current edition of the software. (cue wavy lines)Back then its integration with Visual Studio (a.k.a. SCCI support) was pretty rough around the edges and the AccuRev Client GUI needed a bit of maturing. The worst part of that eval process was being able to see just how great a heart they had to the product. Rather than select a lesser SCM system, we cancelled the upgrade project a decided to wait... (back to reality) This time through, under AccuRev 4.5, they really spent some time and effort on their SCCI support and client GUI. Everyone on the analysis team was really wowed by the product, so much so, that some of us could not wait to get our hands on it. Though it has not occurred every day, at least a few times a week I run across another great feature which makes me shout, "I love AccuRev!"

The new software packages are finally being deployed throughout the department this week. Hopefully, I will have time to return to my other pursuits. The in-laws bought me a book on Esoteric Freemasonry, which will be a great way for me to start learning about this branch of the Craft.