Best practice in xCP 2.0 for more than one developer

What is the best practice for more than one developer working on an xCP 2.0 Application? Generally we would all share the same objects types, maybe some forms and definitely the same namespace.

So questions:

1) How to setup the projects?

a) What references what?

b) Do we export one as a library reference?

2) In the xCP 1.x world, you could import existing objects from docbase, that doesn't seem to exist in xCP 2.0. Or am I missing something?

Jie

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pettitk

This is from the online guide “Help Contents”. We were struggling on best practices with SVN + Designer (not knowing what directories needed to be under SVN control or not), until we found this. Its working fine for us now. Strongly suggest SVN…

Working with a source control system

You can use a third-party source control system to manage application resources. All source control actions are initiated through the third-party source control client. The following high-level steps summarize how to use a third-party source control system to manage resources:

1. Install the source control repository and client.

2. Create an xCP Designer application on your file system.

3. Add the application root folder to the source control repository.

Exclude the following folders (indicated with a forward slash) and files when adding the application root folder and its contents to the repository:

configuration/

gen/

META-INF/

target/

.index

.generatedresources

runapp.log

4. Verify that the application is under source control by confirming the following folders (indicated with a forward slash) and files are in the repository:

.settings/

Artifacts/

content/

lib/

src/

.classpath

.project

build.properties

pom.xml

5. To work with an application that another developer has added to the source control repository:

1. Check out the application from the source control repository to the checkout directory on your file system.

2. Import the application into your xCP Designer environment.

Do not select the option to import a copy of the application.

3. After you update shared resources, check them into the source control repository.

4. To get changes that were checked in by other developers, use your source control client to synchronize your local file system with the changes from the source control repository and then click Refresh on the xCP Designer toolbar to pick up the latest changes.

Refer to the documentation for your source control system for more information on setting up a source control system and using the source control client to complete source control actions.

JieZhang

Thanks for the reply, but that doesn't solve the problem if two developers working in the same application simultaneously. If they are both making updates to the same project, they may conflict. In the 1.x world we would create separate projects for the common pieces and have the projects each developer working on reference these common projects. Can't seem to do that.

Jie

pettitk

oh, also, worth noting. If developer A removes an artifact that was already committed and seen by other developers, then the other developers may get an error about missing an artifact when re-launching Designer. If you get this, just remove the .index file at the root of your project.

The .index file contains a cache of all files in the project. If you delete the .index file, it regenerates upon launching of Designer. So, if a user removes an artifact, our procedure is to close down Designer, do an SVN Update, and remove .index. If they are just adding stuff, the refresh as the guide suggest works fine.

-Kyle

JieZhang

So through another grapevine I found a similar answer, essentially being told to use a central source control system to have a 'master' project and have developers check-in against that. However, how do deal with merging? All these projects are custom xml, how do you deal with conflicts and all the unique IDs and cross-references?

Jie

pettitk

Subversion is free and can deal with merge conflicts.

Hartmut_Clausen

First of all, you should check which source code versioning system your company is using. Most are using Subversion (svn). If there is no company standard yet, I suggest to use Git.

PierJean

When I have imported the project from my SVN, Designer said the folder gen/ is missing.

lastnitescurry


Hartmut Clausen wrote:

First of all, you should check which source code  versioning system your company is using. Most are using Subversion (svn). If there is no company standard yet, I suggest to use Git.

big difference between git and svn (subversion). Not a decision to be taken lightly

Yes GIT is newer, is now built into core Eclipse, uses less storage space, ...

GIT makes sense to me as a consultant working for multiple clients. I'm on the road all the time so a distributed source code control is ideal.

But a company with their own in house development team then it makes more sense to have a centralize source code management system, i.e. SVN