Comments on: The horrors of PVCS Version Manager

By: Art

Art — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 23:07:55 +0000

Git to the rescue!

By: Seth

Seth — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 18:23:56 +0000

Yup, worst tool ever. The only method available to me to use PVCS is through their web service as well. I have had to manually track what files I touch and change so that I don’t miss one when I commit it to the server. God forbid another developer changes the same file I am working on and I have to merge the files. *gasp*

By: boris

boris — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:33:36 +0000

I am amazed this thread is still alive.

By: Paul H

Paul H — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 03:50:00 +0000

I can tell you how I fixed PVCS… I used the CVS server installed on our Red Hat machine to house and diff the code on a regular basis. I tag it during promotions, export the tag.. and check that into PVCS . The rest of my team just uses the CVS machine. Minimizing the pain is the only way I can use that POS system.

Far easier to just use the cvs server already installed on the machine than to beg for admins and bug tickets to be opened to fix it (if it can be fixed, I don’t think most of it even can be). Everyone on my team has saved at least 5 hours a week for the last year by using an old version of CVS instead of PVCS.

By: LongTimeCMgr

LongTimeCMgr — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 18:53:03 +0000

I’ve been a S/W Configuration Manager for about as long as Software CM has existed, and over that time I have used/touched/demod about every VC tool in existence for just about every platform in existence. I have been forced to use PVCS VM for about half of my career and I can tell you that it is absolutely the worst tool that actually costs money. I have been challenged by more than one developer over the years who refused to believe that some of PVCS VM’s horrendous limitations really exist.

For those of you who are stuck with it (as I am right now), I strongly suggest writing as much code as you can in the way of triggers to beef it up. Keep whispering “SubVersion is free” in your boss’ ear when time comes to pay for maintenance……

By: pd

pd — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 02:13:14 +0000

Great review. This is by far the best PVCS manual ever written.
I HATE THIS TOOL

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 21:10:53 +0000

Our company has used Dimensions 8.x and 9.x. We are thinking of migrating to Subversion. Has anyone migrated from Dimensions to Subversion?

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 23:16:24 +0000

ClearCase is only as big as you want to make it. If it takes a long time to deploy it is because your admins simply don’t understand it. I have been a ClearCase admin for a few years now and I can get a team up and running in less than a day – usually a few hours.

Tony mentioned config specs being difficult. Not sure what to say there as I’ve never had any issues but then developers today don’t use make or ant files much either. They just want a GUI to tell them what to do… If you are really afraid of config specs simply use a snapshot view much like CVS or Subversion.

And yes, PVCS/Version Manager is still quite horrid.

By: dev

dev — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 17:39:26 +0000

2009, Dimensions 10. still sucks. The fundamentals of the product are unsound. It’s possibly great for managers, but for a developer’s day to day work it’s generally a hinderance, taking more than a comparable SCM to tweak in order for it to be decently usable.

By: Demented Developer

Demented Developer — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 20:25:50 +0000

A lot has been said about the shortcomings of Dimensions and the shortcomings of the development teams using it. I think both points are valid. I would rather have a knowledgeable CM staff than the best CM tool on the market but the tool quality does make a big difference. In fact, you could say that the lower the quality of the tools the more knowledge is required of the developers to use/workaround it properly. I think Dimensions could be used to provide rudimentary change management but the amount of expertise required to institutionalize the use of Dimensions is such that most teams will realize the need for a better tool before they would choose to make Dimensions work.

It has been very encouraging reading many of these posts because I work with a group of people who know that Dimensions sucks but don’t quite know why. I’m glad somebody is documenting the why for us all.