Chapter 5 Working On a Team

The development cycle presented so far is a fairly simple one in which everyone in an organization contributes to the same development project. But a software development cycle often involves several concurrent development projects. For example:

• You may want to experiment with some changes to the GUI as a result of feedback from usability testing, but are not yet sure whether to include your changes in official builds.

• Another team may try to optimize the database schema without upsetting the current one.

• Another group may need to get a head start on a feature for the next release of the product.

This chapter describes the functions that Rational ClearCase provides to support parallel development, a style of working in which teams use the same set of source files for different, concurrent development projects:

• Version trees

• Working on branches

• Merging

• Sharing control of a branch in an environment using Rational ClearCase MultiSite

(You do not need to read the section about sharing control of a branch with developers at other sites unless your project manager or MultiSite administrator directs you.)