Group Work Is So Elementary ... Not
20 Jan 2017
What is Configuration Management?
Configuration Management(CM) is one of those concepts that may seem elementary, but once a group starts to work on code together, it becomes evident that there are several things to consider when working with one another. CM is important because it helps groups to work on a project, whether it be a shared code, report, etc., without being in the way of one another. Without the use of CM, there could be several errors throughout the shared work such as missing parts or misunderstandings that can’t be figured out.
The Group Project from Hell (…Not Really)
From my own personal experience, where I had to do a team project for ICS 111 at UH Manoa, it was hard to work with my team members since everyone on the team had competely different schedules. During the beginning part of this project, we used google docs to share our code. This worked fairly well at first, although it was fairly irritating to have to keep copying the code into our compiler to see if the code our teammates sent worked or how it worked. However, as our code began to get harder, we started having a hard time since each member’s section of work started interferring with everyone else’s section of work. When we began inserting pictures and sounds into our code, we had to stop using Google docs since we couldn’t share the picture file with each other.
For the rest of the project, we sent each other emails to send our codes to one another. By emailing each other the codes, we were able to send each other a zipped file containing the code, pictures and sounds. One of the major down side to this was that we were constantly waiting on the next person who was supposed to do this part or another person who had to do a particular function. Another down side was that we kept having to unzip the files and reading over the entire code to see what exactly the other person has done since the last time. However, we were able to successfully finish this project, although if we used CM, we probably could have finished this project much faster and more efficiently.
So What Came First? Git or Github?
With CM, one of the best tool to use is Github. However, The question is whether git became popular because of Github or Github is popular because of git. I think that Github is popular because of git. In the reading of A Short History of Git, the website states several good things about git.
Since its birth in 2005, Git has evolved and matured to be easy to use and yet retain these initial qualities. It’s incredibly fast, it’s very efficient with large projects, and it has an incredible branching system for non-linear development
Since git was already popular, I feel that Github simply utilized git to help it make it more popular. Of course, it helped that Github is fairly simple to use and makes it very easy for users to do collaborative work.
Conclusion
Overall, CM is very important and very useful regarding Software Engineering. Without it, large projects requiring multiple people would be near impossible. (I know that I was already getting irritated with my “small” project.) Thankfully, we are able to use programs such as Github to create these projects within our groups.