Talk:AnthillPro

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Sections[edit]

Pages on similar topics such as SCM and build tools often have a section listing projects that use the tool in question. Urbancode offers free licenses to Open Source projects, so I suspect someone has adopted it. Or perhaps they're sticking to the safety of other Open Source tools. Anyone know? I'll see if I can get them to produce some information, as my employer is currently evaluating AnthillPro. AllanAnderson (talk) 21:25, 8 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Release Management[edit]

After reading this section multiple times, I decided to mark one sentence as dubious and in need of clarification: "If a process is automated, it is by definition defined, supported and enforced." This seems to be a self-serving definition, and a redefinition of a commonly understood word (automation) which, according to the dictionaries I checked (American Heritage, Random House), doesn't have these additional requirements tacked onto it. This very much reads like the kind of thing you'd see in a PR or marketing piece. Actually, the entire section reads this way, and really needs to be expanded with specific information, such as how AnthillPro supports release management and how it differs from other, similar products that do the same thing.151.151.16.24 (talk) 22:02, 11 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Lead Section statement about "controlling developers" is not accurate[edit]

AnthillPro and Continuous Integration, CI, are not about "controling developers." The purpose of CI, and AnthillPro which is a CI software server[1] that implements and serves CI, is to automate the quality evaluation of new code as soon as possible after it is submitted, informing developers and contributors when their contribution has caused a decrease in the quality of the project.

The statement about "controlling developers" is incendiary to those involved in the process as well as peripheral. It directs attention away from the real purpose and value of the methodology. CI is about automating the integration testing of new code and "informing" developers when their code has caused a decrease in quality of the project.

CI servers build[2] projects[2]. The success or failure of the build process is the first test of code quality. The build can be (and is traditionally) a manual process which has grown increasingly complex and error prone as our software systems have grown increasingly complex. Time consuming and hard to repeat consistently. The manual build process became too slow to allow the project to be built every time code was submitted. CI servers automated the build process, allowing process of building[2] the project[2] has the effect of minimizing the impact of many code and dependency changes being submitted by different groups to the "project".

CI does enforce certain quality standards on the developers and contributors, (and this is how I will phrase it) minimal though they may be in the larger scheme of developing code and turning it into a releasable product, application, or system. The cost savings of finding these integration failure bugs EARLY in the overall process has been well documented by W. Edwards Deming, Philip B. Crosby and many others over the past 30 years.[3][3A] [3B] Briefly, Deming, Crosby and other statisticians and QA thinkers have demonstrated that the cost of fixing errors rises geometrically the farther they move from the initial site on insertion. Compound that with the fact that in a software development project there are typically multiple contributors to the project; the more contributors, the more insertion points for bugs, and hence the complexity of the problem and the cost of identifying and removing these bugs becomes -overwhelming if it is not controlled.

CI servers have had a huge impact on enterprises - because they are such a valuable step in detecting bugs as close to the source as possible, and saving man years of time on the projects where they are used. Enabling the software to be developed literally years faster, and with much higher quality than it could be otherwise.

Anthill, Anthill OS, were on the leading edge of this revolution.

Notes

  • [1] In a CI [[wiki:Server_(computing)|server}} http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_(computing) --yes a server is a piece of software and Continuous Integration is implemented using a CI server. This software may be running on a machine, alone or with other software and software servers, or it may be running on a virtual machine within a larger system, alone or with other software and software servers.

written in haste ElodieAndco (talk) 13:22, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • [3A](1979). Quality is Free. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-014512-1.
  • [3B] (1996). Quality is still free: Making Quality Certain in Uncertain Times. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-014532-6. 209.116.88.146 (talk) 21:29, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Various comments (xposted from User talk:ElodieAndco[edit]

Notability is not really my axe to grind; prose style is. My perennial issue with articles of this type is, first, that they often appear to be written by people in public relations departments, rather than the technical people who could actually explain why they think the subject belongs in an encyclopedia. A related problem is that they are written from a IT-centric viewpoint and launch immediately into jargon that is either misleading or unintelligible. The jargon itself often has a tone problem, because at least some of it is coined by PR people.

I changed the lead paragraph because I found the description "continuous integration server" mildly (and no doubt unintentionally) misleading. In my mind's eye a server is a box that's part of the internet's hardware structure, and the product wasn't one of those. I attempted to supply a description in English of what I understood the product actually was and did. My text probably reads like the obvious maunderings of a clueless idiot to people who actually use this program. Go ahead and improve it if you can, but try to explain it in English.

I've flagged a number of other portions for attention. The rest of the lead paragraph links to a number of quite awful articles (Something-Something Management is a particular swamp of despair) and isn't really clear as a description of how these things represent additions to the software's capabilities. References to various "philosophies" of managing teams of computer programmers are particularly unhelpful; my impression is that these business methods differ trivially from one another, seem to be subject to the vagaries of fashion, are given various self-congratulatory labels ("lean", "agile") as a sort of branding, and tend to be described in sales-oriented, non-neutral text.

I've flagged a number of perceived problem areas. Now that the AfD is over, I don't see it necessary to add a list of trade awards, either; frankly, I think lists of them make the article look like you're clutching at straws for notability, and I'm willing to accept the judgment at AFD that the subject is in fact notable.

Going to crosspost this to the article's talk page. Probably best to focus on the live article, just so discussions are all in one place. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 18:00, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I reworded the part that I added, and expanded it a bit, making note of the bit about finding bugs sooner rather than later. It does seem to me to be most exactly described as a tool for coordinating teams of computer programmers, though. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 16:20, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am very happy to focus on the live article, thank you for taking the time to read what I wrote above. I agree with you about the prose. I hate marketing jargon also, and appreciate your take on these articles. ElodieAndco (talk) 23:58, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks. That was an excellent simplification of syntax. And now your opening tells people from outside of IT fields why this is significant, while being very matter of fact about what it is and does. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 04:31, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Recommend content edit: reorganize the flow[edit]

After finishing a copy edit here, I recommend reordering the material to achieve a better flow. If the paragraphs were moved around and the headings reworked, there could be a flow that shows how AnthillPro developed along with CI. But as it stands now, it's a jerky back-and-forth between the two. I may give it a try; but I welcome someone with more knowledge of the subject to beat me to it. Jeffmsmith70 (talk) 01:01, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Still actively developed?[edit]

The second paragraph says: "AnthillPro was released in 2001 and continues to be developed by UrbanCode."

Is this still true? It looks to me like AHP has had only fixes since September, 2013, and IBM has positioned UrbanCode Build as its successor.

208.86.145.68 (talk) 16:38, 20 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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Is it still called AnthillPro?[edit]

I've gone around in the UrbanCode website, and the only mention of AnthillPro I can find is in plugins. Nowhere else on the website is it mentioned. Is IBM still calling AnthillPro, or did they change the name to UrbanCode? If they changed the name, perhaps we should change the article to reflect that.

Also many of the links to this article are now dead or archived. Especially if they talked about AnthillPro. In particular for #25, the article no longer exists on their website. We may need to pull from archive for that one as well. I'm not sure how to do that. ChthonicOne (talk) 17:52, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Added redirect[edit]

I have added UrbanCode as a redirect to this article. Feel free to improve this. Jamplevia (talk) 13:41, 25 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

More external links[edit]

Jamplevia (talk) 16:00, 25 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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