BorlandTalk.com Borland discussion newsgroups   Archives   FAQ   Search   Memberlist   Usergroups   Register   Profile   Log in to check your private messages   Log in  suggestions for "freezing" a development snapshot Goto page 1, 2  Next          BorlandTalk.com Forum Index -> Delphi Non-Technical View previous topic :: View next topic   Author Message Davids Guest Posted: Fri Jul 16, 2004 7:24 pm    Post subject: suggestions for "freezing" a development snapshot I'm not sure where to post this, but I've been asked to do something referred to as "freezing" a (Delphi) development snapshot. That is, we're getting ready to release some software, and we need to do something to ensure that if we ever need to work on this release again, then we can re-load the entire environment as it is right now. Some companies do that by simply prohibiting the addition of any components or anything except a narrow set. But still, they can be upgraded over time, and those upgrades can play havoc with programs built with previous versions. There's also the problem of upgrading Delphi itself. Are there any sections in books, or articles, that discuss this sort of thing? The obvious thing is to do a backup of an entire installation, but that requires a spare machine to reload (given limitations of how things interact with the Windows registry, etc). Any suggestions, pointers, tips, etc are welcome. TIA -David Back to top Des O'Toole Guest Posted: Fri Jul 16, 2004 7:47 pm    Post subject: Re: suggestions for "freezing" a development snapshot You could use VMWare or VirtualPc to create a complete, reloadable copy of your current working environment. Des "Davids" <nowhere (AT) nowthere (DOT) com> wrote Quote: I'm not sure where to post this, but I've been asked to do something referred to as "freezing" a (Delphi) development snapshot. That is, we're getting ready to release some software, and we need to do something to ensure that if we ever need to work on this release again, then we can re-load the entire environment as it is right now. Some companies do that by simply prohibiting the addition of any components or anything except a narrow set. But still, they can be upgraded over time, and those upgrades can play havoc with programs built with previous versions. There's also the problem of upgrading Delphi itself. Are there any sections in books, or articles, that discuss this sort of thing? The obvious thing is to do a backup of an entire installation, but that requires a spare machine to reload (given limitations of how things interact with the Windows registry, etc). Any suggestions, pointers, tips, etc are welcome. TIA -David Back to top Craig Stuntz [TeamB] Guest Posted: Fri Jul 16, 2004 7:51 pm    Post subject: Re: suggestions for "freezing" a development snapshot Davids wrote: Quote: I'm not sure where to post this, but I've been asked to do something referred to as "freezing" a (Delphi) development snapshot. That is, we're getting ready to release some software, and we need to do something to ensure that if we ever need to work on this release again, then we can re-load the entire environment as it is right now. You should put the entire source base -- including VCL and third-components and the dcc32 command-line compiler itself -- into your version control system and then create a branch for the "frozen" release. If you ever need to rebuild, just check out everything from the branch. It's a good idea to make your "regular" build process do the same thing. -Craig -- Craig Stuntz [TeamB] . Vertex Systems Corp. . Columbus, OH Delphi/InterBase Weblog : http://blogs.teamb.com/craigstuntz Useful articles about InterBase development: http://blogs.teamb.com/craigstuntz/category/21.aspx Back to top Dan Barclay Guest Posted: Fri Jul 16, 2004 7:56 pm    Post subject: Re: suggestions for "freezing" a development snapshot A good version control system is the most useful way. But, if you're concerned about the development environment itself (including stuff installed on the machine), you could always use DriveImage or an equivalent to capture a bit-image of the drives. Burn them to CD or DVD and restore if you need. "Davids" <nowhere (AT) nowthere (DOT) com> wrote Quote: I'm not sure where to post this, but I've been asked to do something referred to as "freezing" a (Delphi) development snapshot. That is, we're getting ready to release some software, and we need to do something to ensure that if we ever need to work on this release again, then we can re-load the entire environment as it is right now. Some companies do that by simply prohibiting the addition of any components or anything except a narrow set. But still, they can be upgraded over time, and those upgrades can play havoc with programs built with previous versions. There's also the problem of upgrading Delphi itself. Are there any sections in books, or articles, that discuss this sort of thing? The obvious thing is to do a backup of an entire installation, but that requires a spare machine to reload (given limitations of how things interact with the Windows registry, etc). Any suggestions, pointers, tips, etc are welcome. TIA -David Back to top mamcx Guest Posted: Fri Jul 16, 2004 8:01 pm    Post subject: Re: suggestions for "freezing" a development snapshot My brutal suggestion, bullet-proof aproach: Do a ghost backup. My second suggestion: Copy all thirdyparty installer, backups, copy the delphi registry and do a backup of the full project(not forget include the things like images, documentation, etc....). In the other hand, always have a salesman ready to say " I can give you a cheap upgrade" ...if all fails ;) Back to top Phil Shrimpton Guest Posted: Fri Jul 16, 2004 8:20 pm    Post subject: Re: suggestions for "freezing" a development snapshot In article <40F82B77.3DD504FE (AT) nowthere (DOT) com>, [email]nowhere (AT) nowthere (DOT) com[/email] says... Hi, Quote: I'm not sure where to post this, but I've been asked to do something referred to as "freezing" a (Delphi) development snapshot. Just 'tag' all the code in your VCS, or am I missing something? Phil -- Discover a lost art - play Marbles May 2004 www.marillion.com Back to top TObject Guest Posted: Fri Jul 16, 2004 8:37 pm    Post subject: Re: suggestions for "freezing" a development snapshot Interesting question. We are talking about development environment here, not source code. One thing I know is that if you restore a frozen Delphi 8 environment on a different computer, you have to go through the registration process again. And you only have so many registrations, before you have to call Borland and beg for more. It would be nice to know what part of the system Delphi registration is tied to. If only the hard drive, then, perhaps, it would be possible to use removable hard-drives for different projects. However, I am sure that it's got to be more than just a hard drive. In fact I know, that Delphi 8 registration is NOT tied to a particular hard drive, but rather to something else in the system. Another solution could be just putting the whole computer with a frozen project in storage. May not be a very viable solution. Or, maybe, make sure that restore is always done to the same computers where the freeze was originally performed. As you can see, I am not entirely happy with forced registrations. As far as how to copy the whole Development environment, including OS from an NT or Windows 2000 computer (I haven't tried XP), that's easy. Just load Windows installed on a different partition, and use the scopy command, like this: scopy e:*.* g: /o /a /s g: should be an empty drive, used for "freezing" e: is your source drive with the development environment. Note: do not use a Hard Drive (or just a Hard Drive) for long storage. Always make a backup copy on Tape or Optical Drive or some other backup media, that won't go bad if you accidentally drop it on the floor. Back to top Kevin Powick Guest Posted: Fri Jul 16, 2004 10:00 pm    Post subject: Re: suggestions for "freezing" a development snapshot In article <40f830e8 (AT) newsgroups (DOT) borland.com>, "Des O'Toole" <des> says... Quote: You could use VMWare or VirtualPc to create a complete, reloadable copy of your current working environment. Pretty much the best suggestion because it allows you to continue using your workstation or other virtual machines. -- Kevin Powick Back to top JohnE Guest Posted: Fri Jul 16, 2004 10:02 pm    Post subject: Re: suggestions for "freezing" a development snapshot Quote: Just 'tag' all the code in your VCS, or am I missing something? I think he wants to freeze his entire environment.. OS, IDE etc... John Back to top Lauchlan M Guest Posted: Fri Jul 16, 2004 10:29 pm    Post subject: Re: suggestions for "freezing" a development snapshot Quote: You could use VMWare or VirtualPc to create a complete, reloadable copy of your current working environment. Pretty much the best suggestion because it allows you to continue using your workstation or other virtual machines. I third this. Also, you could check this whole virtual PC into a source control program if you really wanted to (although I don't see too much point in that), thereby combining this solution with the other solution suggested in this thread. If you have a reasonable size hard disk though I don't see the point - just leave your virtual environments set up and ready to go. Lauchlan M. Back to top Des O'Toole Guest Posted: Fri Jul 16, 2004 11:14 pm    Post subject: Re: suggestions for "freezing" a development snapshot "Kevin Powick" <nospam (AT) nomail (DOT) com> wrote Quote: In article <40f830e8 (AT) newsgroups (DOT) borland.com>, "Des O'Toole" says... You could use VMWare or VirtualPc to create a complete, reloadable copy of your current working environment. Pretty much the best suggestion because it allows you to continue using your workstation or other virtual machines. I probably should have also added that following this route, he would then be free to re-use his created environment on any computer that can run VMWare/VirtualPc. This means he is also protected against hardware/OS upgrades. The only downsides are extra software costs and the fact that he would have to recreate his initial environment. Des Back to top Oliver Townshend Guest Posted: Fri Jul 16, 2004 11:15 pm    Post subject: Re: suggestions for "freezing" a development snapshot Quote: The obvious thing is to do a backup of an entire installation, but that requires a spare machine to reload (given limitations of how things interact with the Windows registry, etc). Buy VMWare (or Virtual PC) and create a Virtual Machine. Backup it up to a CD. Oliver Townshend Back to top I R T Guest Posted: Sat Jul 17, 2004 2:13 am    Post subject: Re: suggestions for "freezing" a development snapshot How about creating a vmware image and then loading and running it under vmware when you need to ? Back to top Thomas Mueller Guest Posted: Sat Jul 17, 2004 10:54 am    Post subject: VMware Hi, Davids wrote: Quote: we're getting ready to release some software, and we need to do something to ensure that if we ever need to work on this release again, then we can re-load the entire environment as it is right now. We have successfully used VMware for this. Actually we also do all our development in virtual machines from the start so there is no problem of creating a development environment in a virtual machine at release time since it already exists and only needs to be backuped. Unfortunately many of our images have become too large to fit on a cdrom so now we burn them to a dvd as part of our release process. An added benefit is that you don't "pollute" your development environment with all that stuff that usually needs to be installed on a work PC like email client, web browser, office applications etc.. (In my case this goes into yet another virtual machine so I can just move it to a new PC without installing anything but VMware on that box.) The only drawback is that you need quite a powerfull box to host all these virtual machines and still get decent performance. 1 gig of memory is a must, if you use more than 2 virtual machines. regards twm Back to top Vincent Parrett (Atozed S Guest Posted: Sat Jul 17, 2004 11:34 pm    Post subject: Re: suggestions for "freezing" a development snapshot "Davids" <nowhere (AT) nowthere (DOT) com> wrote Quote: I'm not sure where to post this, but I've been asked to do something referred to as "freezing" a (Delphi) development snapshot. [snip] Are there any sections in books, or articles, that discuss this sort of thing? I wrote about a good one on my blog a while back : http://blogs.atozed.com/vincent/archive/2004/05/30/170.aspx Software Configuration Management Patterns - Effective Teamwork, Practial Integration - by Stephen P. Berczuk & Brad Appleton. Chapter 10 - "Third Party Codeline" has some good advice on how to deal with third party source code in your vcs. In addition to the other suggestions for VMWare (which I also use and recommend), you should make sure you should make sure you have a solid version control system and know how to use it's branching facilities properly. <shamelessplug> Our automated build tool FinalBuilder will help you develop and maintain an automated build process where you can do things such get a labeled version of your code from your vcs, get labeled versions of the third party components, compile it, compile the help file, build the install, upload it to your website. Another advantage of using finalbuilder to compile projects is you don't need the specific versions of third party components you need for that project installed in the ide, just tell finalbuilder where they are. Some of our customers keep a project manifest file which defines the vcs labels for each third party product they use for a project, so the automated build will always get the correct version before building. If they decide to upgrade to a newer version, it's just a case of changing the label in the manifest file and rebuilding. </shamelessplug> HTH -- Regards Vincent Parrett Atozed Software http://www.atozedsoftware.com My blog : http://blogs.atozed.com/vincent ---------------------------------------- Automate your Build Process with FinalBuilder Back to top Display posts from previous: All Posts1 Day7 Days2 Weeks1 Month3 Months6 Months1 Year Oldest FirstNewest First         BorlandTalk.com Forum Index -> Delphi Non-Technical All times are GMT Goto page 1, 2  Next Page 1 of 2   Jump to: Select a forum C++ Builder Newsgroups----------------C++ BuilderC++ Builder (ActiveX)C++ Builder (Announcements)C++ Builder (Command Line Tools)C++ Builder DatabasesC++ Builder Databases (ADO)C++ Builder Databases (Desktop)C++ Builder Databases (InterBase Express)C++ Builder Databases (Multi-Tier)C++ Builder Databases (SQL Servers)C++ Builder (Graphics)C++ Builder (IDE)C++ Builder (Internet)C++ Builder (Internet Socket)C++ Builder (Internet Web)C++ Builder (Jobs)C++ Builder (Language)C++ Builder (Language C++)C++ Builder (Compatibility with MFC)C++ Builder (Native API)C++ Builder (Non-Technical)C++ Builder (Students)C++ Builder (Third Party Tools)C++ Builder (Upgrade)C++ Builder (VCL)C++ Builder (VCL Components Usage)C++ Builder (VCL Components Development)C++ Builder (VCL Usage)C++ Builder (WinAPI)C++ Builder Installation Delphi Newsgroups----------------Delphi (General)Delphi ActiveX Controls UsageDelphi ActiveX Controls DevelopmentDelphi As400Delphi DatabasesDelphi Databases (ADO)Delphi Databases (dbExpress)Delphi Databases (Desktop)Delphi Databases (InterBase Express)Delphi Databases (Multi-Tier)Delphi Databases (SQL Servers)Delphi DeploymentDelphi GraphicsDelphi IDEDelphi InternationalizationDelphi InternetDelphi Internet Isapi-WebBrokerDelphi Internet WebSnapDelphi Internet WinsockDelphi JobsDelphi Language BASMDelphi Language ObjectPascalDelphi Model Driven Architecture (General)Delphi Model Driven Architecture (Third Party)Delphi MultimediaDelphi Native APIDelphi Non-TechnicalDelphi ObjectPascalDelphi OLE AutomationDelphi OO designDelphi OpenToolsAPIDelphi Reporting-ChartingDelphi RTLDelphi StudentsDelphi TeamSourceDelphi Thirdparty ToolsDelphi Thirdparty Tools (General)Delphi Thirdparty Tools (IntraWeb)Delphi Thirdparty Tools (RaveReports)Delphi UpgradeDelphi VCLDelphi VCL ComponentsDelphi VCL Components UsingDelphi VCL Components WritingDelphi WebServices SOAPDelphi WinAPIDelphi XMLDelphi Installationcomp.lang.pascal.delphi.components.misccomp.lang.pascal.delphi.components.usagecomp.lang.pascal.delphi.components.writingcomp.lang.pascal.delphi.databasescomp.lang.pascal.delphi.misccomp.sources.delphi JBuilder Newsgroups----------------JBuilderJBuilder AnnouncementsJBuilder Applet IssuesJBuilder As400JBuilder CompilerJBuilder CORBA/RMIJBuilder DatabasesJBuilder DB SwingJBuilder DebuggerJBuilder DeploymentJBuilder DocumentationJBuilder EnterpriseJBuilder HandheldJBuilder IDEJBuilder JavaJBuilder JavaAPIJBuilder Java LanguageJBuilder Java SwingJBuilder Java BeansJBuilder Java Beans UsageJBuilder Java Beans DevelopmentJBuilder JBCLJBuilder JDataStoreJBuilder JobsJBuilder LinuxJBuilder MacintoshJBuilder & MobileSetJBuilder MultiLingual AppsJBuilder Non-TechnicalJBuilder OpenToolsJBuilder Servlets (JSP)JBuilder StudentsJBuilder Team DevelopmentJBuilder Thirdparty ToolsJBuilder UpgradeJBuilder Installation InterBase Newsgroups----------------InterBaseInterBase Bug DiscussionInterBase GeneralInterBase IBConsoleInterBase OpenSourceInterBase ReplicationInterBase SQLInterBase ThirdpartyInterBase Installation Miscellaneous Borland Newsgroups----------------AppCenterAppServerEnteraVisiBroker  You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2006 phpBB Group SEO toolkit © 2004-2006 webmedic.