Las herramientas de configuración y el ciclo de vida del software

La administración de cambios: Lo que inicialmente tuvo un alcance limitado al manejo del código fuente, con un ciclo corto de administración entre un repositorio de código y los objetos en producción, evoluciona y se ajusta más cada año a principios industriales (ingeniería de software) para la construcción de software. El artículo de Michel Sayko enlazado en el título de la nota quizá no diga algo muy nuevo, pero tiene la virtud de exponer en cierto modo el estado actual del manejo de la configuración del software (SCM), al presentar la disciplina como una parte central del manejo del ciclo de vida, y destacar la capacidad de definir procesos de trabajo a través de los cuales se aplique el control de cambios. En sus palabras:

Early configuration management tools provided version control for source code files. By versioning source code files, changes made by one developer to one file could be preserved. Other developers could take these versions, modify them, and create new versions. The ability to version files became a prerequisite for team development. Over time, SCM tools offered integrated defect tracking since testing during the software development lifecycle identified bugs that needed to be fixed. Next came workflow automation. Tool vendors added process models and workflow engines to their SCM tools so that an organization could model and execute its software development process. Process items could model the activities that are at the core of software development lifecycle, such as gathering requirements, specifying features and functionality, designing, coding, and testing. A workflow engine could move each process item though a sequence of states as the activity modeled by the process item progressed. Over time, process modeling capabilities in the tools evolved. Today, SCM tools can model complex development processes. SCM tool users have come to expect flexible and extensible process models that can be adapted easily as an organization’s processes change. In addition, SCM tools users now look for an integration between requirements management and core SCM features. The need to ensure that a software system satisfies an evolving set of requirements is what drives this integration. Customer expectations and government regulations now make traceability from requirements to source code files a requirement for the software development lifecycle.