More then one developer on same project

[jbenton]

My company is looking at using A5v9 for a re-write of our application. Are there any issues have more then one developer work on the same project at the same time? ( Not on the same screen, but one on say a invoice screen and another on a product screen) all in the same application?

thanks, Jeff

[DaveM]

Re: More then one developer on same project

as long as you have 2 copies of the developement a5v?, good communication and working in different areas. You should be fine.

you are allowed 2 copies of a5(one on desktop and one on laptop), but the same one(serial number) can't open the same app at the same time. That is how I understand it. You would need a 2 user or 3 user depending on how many are going to access the app. I think they sell it as 1 or 3(not sure).


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[MRichard]

Re: More then one developer on same project

Of course there are numerous issues with that!

Alpha Five is not designed to be a workgroup database development tool, so you do not have ANY developers workgroup related management options or controls.

That means, that you can not log in or log out application parts to work on, and it would be very well possible that when 2 developers work at the same form, your work is lost to name only a minor problem with that.

There is no administration on who did what, etc etc etc.

The list of things you will miss is long.
For instance if you want to work with release control, you will be nowhere with Alpha Five. It is not implemented anywhere on any level.

If you want to use Alpha Five for a workgroup related project, I suggest you get a very good third party product to manage your workgroup, but even then it will not be even close to any built-in workgroup management or project management system.

I have always found the lack of such a management system one of the main reasons to doubt the use of Alpha Five in a professional multi-developer environment where you MUST have quality control on a high level.

Alpha Five as a tool is quite OK to deliver the most enhanced jobs, but this can be a very valid argument to not chose it.

I doubt that anywhere in the future Alpha Five will implement such functions, as their target customers do not specifically include professional developer workgroups at all.

[Tom Henkel]

Re: More then one developer on same project

We have a very large Alpha environment. Our systems reside on shared servers, so we are all working with a common database. Our development team is 5 people. Although it is true that 2 people working on the same form or report could be a problem, in our case, when one has the layout open for edit, nobody else can get in to make any changes.

Although there is no specific tool within Alpha to control versions and such, if your team is small enough and actually speaks to each other, I see no reason why you can't have numerous developers working together on a coordinated project. I could never have handled this massive a project on my own. Different individuals brought different levels of knowledge to the development effort and made it a very successful project that has been in place and growing for the last 15 years.

The attached form is our main menu. Under each button is either a sub menu or another database to be opened. In all, there are over 30 different databases that can be accessed from this main screen.

We have had as many as 8 developer's licenses, and now have 5 with version 9.


Tom

[MRichard]

Re: More then one developer on same project

Of course, everything can be done, but the question is not whether it CAN be done or not, but whether it is acceptable or not. In modern, larger companies that need to go through various quality system certifications, one needs to work "release based" in which process several control points need to be established where the releases are actually controlled and authorised.
That is quite something else as developers working in a live database!

Furthermore, one often needs to invoice working hours to various projects or sister/mother companies, one often needs to work at several projects at the same time etc etc.
All kinds of things that are not taken care of by Alpha.

Nobody disputes whether you could "make something working" but it will never be optimal, and at the end of the day, your overall quality demands determine what you can and can not use.

[Tom Henkel]

Re: More then one developer on same project

Just to set things right.

Our releases are controlled and authorized. Since we use network optimization, nobody gets the modified software until we release the shadow. This is controlled by US. We use an internal system of updating shadows where we place a self-extracting zip of the shadowed database into a folder on a server, and if the release is permitted, when a user boots their machine, the shadow will be delivered, NOT BEFORE. This method gives us full control over when changes are released to the organization.

Tom

[DaveM]

Re: More then one developer on same project

Tom has a better "system" than i professed. I have no need at this point of more than one.

As i said before, good communication and working in different(assigned) areas should do it with 2 people.

I have worked where we had many developers on a project with no more user lockout than a5 has. Each programmer had his own section to work on and stayed out of the other areas. Each had their own Varables/forms/reports/functions/etc and no one changed a table without all approving those changes.

Common sense helps a lot.

Jeff is only looking for 2 people to work on the project and that should be fairly easy.

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[MRichard]

Re: More then one developer on same project

Just to set things right.

Our releases are controlled and authorized. Since we use network optimization, nobody gets the modified software until we release the shadow. This is controlled by US. We use an internal system of updating shadows where we place a self-extracting zip of the shadowed database into a folder on a server, and if the release is permitted, when a user boots their machine, the shadow will be delivered, NOT BEFORE. This method gives us full control over when changes are released to the organization.

Tom

Of course, as it should be, point is however, that the complete administration around this needs to be done externally and cannot be managed from within the Alpha Five environment. That is a major setback if you compare it towards other professional environments which have built-in project management capabilities.

It seems important that we stay as objective as possible.
Alpha Five is not the holy grale of programming.
It is a very good tool for specific target groups, and I have years of experience with it dating back from version 5 and every version scince. But it has its flaws and downsides......

[DaveM]

Re: More then one developer on same project

I have years of experience with it dating back from version 5 and every version scince.

I have been with Alpha since about 1990. It is what it is. I was with and still do a little VB, c++, c#, and a few others as needed. They all have their draw backs. They all have their good side too.

I suspect Alpha will eventually develope into a dual product line. One product is what they have now for the beginner and RAD, but the other will be way past this for the large developer with the features a multi-programmer environment needs. I also suspect both will have a lot of web capabilities. I could be wrong though. It would be a great way to move the accomplised Alpha user to the next level and keep them within the community.

Mouth full, HUH?



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[MRichard]

Re: More then one developer on same project

I do not support that vision.

That may be what Alpha would wish for itself, but it won't happen.
Simply because large companies have hooked themselves up with Microsoft by investing huge amounts of money in products, Microsoft oriented and trained personnel etc etc.
Software they have is almost in every case chained-up with other software products that are also Microsoft based.

There is no reason to change to Alpha when Alpha only upgrades to offering the same as those products or even slightly more.

There will be only a sufficient economic depreciation when Alpha offers way more to medium/large companies as the Microsoft based products do, which is very unlikely to become the case.

So, realism calls for the conclusion that Alpha will stay what it is: a product for the SOHO customer and independent small developers.

Which can be quite enough to run a good business on by the way.

[Roderick]

Re: More then one developer on same project

www.dropbox.com is 2Gigs of free synced storage. Watch the 2 minute video to get a quick understanding of what it does.

The best part about it is that multiple people can sign up and share the same files and folders. Although there is no signing out of files, Dropbox does keep all past versions of the files. You can work offline or online because it keeps copies of the files on your hard drive. Then when you connect it updates itself.

This is the poor man's solution but it does work. I've been using dropbox since the first day it was available. I keep most of my documents there.

[MRichard]

Re: More then one developer on same project

www.dropbox.com is 2Gigs of free synced storage. Watch the 2 minute video to get a quick understanding of what it does.

The best part about it is that multiple people can sign up and share the same files and folders. Although there is no signing out of files, Dropbox does keep all past versions of the files. You can work offline or online because it keeps copies of the files on your hard drive. Then when you connect it updates itself.

This is the poor man's solution but it does work. I've been using dropbox since the first day it was available. I keep most of my documents there.

Hi Roderick,

Can you elaborate some more on the way you use DropBox in combination with Alpha Five?
It seems like a solution you can use if you work with more users spread over several geographical locations with one database.
But on second thought, this does not seem possible, because records do not get locked if opened at the same time locally by different developers at different geographical locations, and on logging in this gets synchronized? That will give a mess.....
Or do I miss an important feature here?

Thanks for the tip by-the-way!

Looking forward to hear from you about this.

Regards,

[Roderick]

Re: More then one developer on same project

I use dropbox to save my project files. This way if I am using my laptop or if I am using my desktop, I am still working on the same project. I do not worry about syncing or copy and pasting files. I do not have to use a usb drive either.

If you are concerned with multiple developers using the same project files at the same time then we should test this ourselves.

Let find a demo web application. I will place it inside of a dropbox folder and share it with anyone on this board that wants to help test this option. We would have to schedule a time for everyone to start editing grids and pages.

Let me know if you want to go forward with this.

[MRichard]

Re: More then one developer on same project

I am all in favor for testing, but the obvious doesn't need testing.....

Suppose we would have 2 testers, and 1 would open the adb on 15:00, and 2 would open the adb on 15:01. Both locally.

Tester 1 would save a record in the customers table on 15:10, and tester 2 would save a record in the invoice table on 15:11.

Both data will be presented to the Dropbox, and will resolve in synchronizing to the extend that the database change at 15:10 will be dealt with, and next the change at 15:11.
So, Dropbox will end up with the change from 15:11 and the change from 15:10 will not be there, simply because the synchronization from 15:10 will be overwritten by the synchronization from 15:11.

It won't work UNLESS it would involve record locking.

It WILL work however in the situation as you described as how YOU use it, because there is a 1:1 connection there.
It will also work if there is 1 developer with multiple computers using dropbox, but only if you open the adb at only one machine at the same time.

You can test it yourself by opening any adb from more then one machine that is connected to your dropbox at the same time, and then making two different changes on either one of those machines, and then see with what end result the dropbox will let you end up with....

Or do you have another vision on how it will work?

Regards,

[kkfin]

Re: More then one developer on same project

MRichard, you are absolutely right what you are pointing. Things are not the way they should be in Alpha. As you mentioned for example, there is really no version control at all and I just don't understand why not!

Alpha is marketing their product also to developers as we all know , but all the developer tools are missing. They were missing from version 7 (my first version) and they are still missing.

When we use Alpha we do not have:
- Workgroup development tools
- Version control
- Database design tools (EER modeling aids)
- Rock solid installer
- Good debugger
- Software updating tools (to customers)

Alpha is working now hard with their Web Solution. But I think they have forgot the basics. Recent years in the Alpha desktop development has been a big disappointment to me.
Yeah we do now have html, pdf(?), many many genies, huge amount different properties and so on.
But what we really need are missing, still.

Alphas desktops side is in bad shape. It is shame for Alpha. You have to use third party tools for development. Now we have Active Links. So it is sensible to use MySql (database) . So then it is sensible to use MySql Workbench (EER ) for database modeling. Because I use MySql I can handle the data through any script language (php, perl, lua...) together with Apache. Then I can also use php engines like Scriptcase if I want. The list is endless. So what is Alphas role here?

Alpha wake up!