Title says it all. What, if any, Is the difference between a software 'release' and a 'version'?
Do these two definitions overlap? Is it the case that all releases, and release candidates are versions, but not all versions are releases?
Here's a simplistic explanation:
Build − executable or a library created by compiling source code.
Version − a software build. New version is a different build.
Release − (public release) a version intended for use by general population.
Build #465832567 is just the number of times the main developer compiled the program (or library). Sensible developers only release builds with meaningful and tested changes.
Version 2.1.5 means it's the second edition with at least 1 major difference from its 2.0.~ predecessors and 5 minor feature updates or bug fixes.
"Public release" usually means it's a version for normal users who are not involved in testing or development of the software.
Different release types example:
Firefox − browser version for simple users
Aurora − so called "alpha" version, which includes latest additions, some untested
Nightly − "beta" version for developers and enthusiasts who don't fear bugs and crashes
I am not sure if there is a very concrete on these two terms, and the definition seems also differs base on context.
Normally Release is more about the "action" to distribute the software to interested candidates, while "version" is an identifier of certain snapshot of the software (mostly a meaningful snapshot).
Therefore, in most case, as we need to identify certain release of the application, we will have a version assigned. (There are always exceptions anyway...)
Definition of version:
a particular form of something differing in certain respects from an earlier form or other forms of the same type of thing.
Think of it this way.
When you edit the code, depending apon what you consider a change (saving, publishing, or just editing), your code version changes (depending on how large of a difference you consider a version- also note that versioning systems can be whatever you decide). You might have a version of code where there is a bug, then you patch it, and you have another version. What you call your versions can be whatever you want (versioning system).
A release is commonly considered a version that is pretty stable, complete, tested and most likely having few known bugs and then made public, although more technically its ANY version made public. However, when you see the word release I feel it is safe to assume it is the first provided you cant figure it out by context.
This is my second post so I hope it was helpful!
A release describes more the process of publishing a software than a concrete material thing. Whereas a version is a concrete and specific software package. Because you won’t publish all software versions you build, only the software versions that you publish or deliver are called software releases. A build is the process of compiling and packaging of a software. Because you can build one and the same code more than once at different machines and with different compilers in different environments a build is the outcome of compile and packaging code and software parts.
Imagine you plan, design, develop, build and test a software. All this steps bring you towards a software release. Because you don’t exactly know how much fixes and versions your team has to build and your quality assurance rejects you must define an objective for you team and your customers. So a release is an objective your team develops towards.
So let’s say you plan your first release in November. The objective of your team is to create a “Halloween Release”. Towards this “Halloween Release” you think it’s clever to present it to our QA before delivering the first version to key users or customers. So the intermediate objective of your team is to create a QA-Release or Alpha-Release. After the 1001st build you present a first running version for example 1.0-alpha-build-1001 to your QA. But your QA rejects this version and the following version as well. So you further fix, improve and build to get a Beta Release that your QA accepts for presentation to key users. Then some builds after, your QA confirms so you can present 1.0-beta-build-4711 to your key users; your first Beta-Release. After some improvements you publish your “Halloween Release” at November with version 1.0 as final software version to your customers. But unfortunately some customers complain about minor issues and some users do complain about missing features. In consequence you decide to fix the issues on the one hand and to integrate new features on the other hand. So your team has two goals and objectives, first to fix and to work towards a “Bugfix release” and second to work for a “Christmas Release” with the new features.
So you fix and build a “Bugfix release”, maybe resulting in a version 1.1. In parallel your team creates new features, integrates, tests and builds a “Christmas release”, resulting in a version 2.0 you deliver at Christmas to your customers.
So in one sentence: A release is a challenge towards a version, you deliver to a particular addresse:
QA-Releases for your QA to examine your software.
Beta-Releases for your key users to introduce new features.
Customer releases for customers to satisfy customers and make money.
Seasonal releases and other releases for funny as serious objectives as well.
In application life-cycle management, it's common to have some environments. For example:
DEV -> Staging -> Production
Normally, you would develop in the DEV environment and stage your developments to Staging and Production.
But it's possible to directly modify the PRD environment (to quickly fix a bug, for instance).
How do you call this procedure (the modification of your code in an environment that is not the DEV environment)?
I thought it was called "hotfix" but I see no related search results in Google.
As opposed to your reference entity Environment the entity is, in my opinion, Branch within your SCM.
With this in mind, you are absolutely right: In my experience it was always a Hotfix branch. For planet TFS where I currently reside, this is described in various branching guidelines including this one - which is considered to be among the best (if not THE best).I had similar experiences in a UNIX/ClearCase planet, again with Hotfix branches - they were named as "MaintenanceRelease"-branches. Those contained one or more Hotfixes, occasionally a highly anticipated Feature could be merged into that as well.I wouldn't ever expect to see in any company a "Hotfix"- Environment. 'Hotfixes' address any possible crisis that a customer has experienced and that is per definition pretty vague. So having such an environment, is possibly a Utopia. In one occasion, they had a "BLS" - lab ("Back Level Support") which was used by Support-People to reproduce customer scenarios. Hotfixes provided by Development were deployed in this Lab before release. This is in some extend a "Hotfix" environment - still, beware that this installation costed millions.
Which best practice involved in software configuration management to help in improving project management?
It mitigates a whole bunch of project risks, including:
The risk of making a change which is found to be incorrect: SCM software allows you to see the change and roll back
The risk that you could lose all your source code (much less likely since everyone has a copy on their machine)
The risk that two people could make incompatible changes: good SCM will allow you to merge the two and get the best of both worlds.
Also, these days SCM is so easy and cheap to set up that embarking on a software project without it is madness.
Assuming you're really focused on best practices, I can outline a couple of possibilities.
Using the best (SCM) tools available. While this might depend on your specific goals and constraints, Mercurial and Git are hard to beat (distributed, excellent branch/merge capabilities, multiplatform, FOSS, really fast, flexible workflow etc.).
You can analyse the data in your source repository using a tool like PanBI (disclaimer: I wrote it). A short screencast shows off what you can learn from repository contents analysis. In brief:
general work dynamics on the codebase
breakdown per developer
daily work dynamics
type of changes to the codebase (add/remove/modify), part of the source tree
...and much more.
Connecting an SCM tool with an issue tracker can also add value. Developers place issue ID's in commit messages, e.g. "[#1455]: improved performance a bit" and the issue tracker relates the issue with the changes in the code repository. From a project management perspective, this allows you to loosely track the time spent on individual issues, project phases or complete projects. A simple commit hook refusing commits without an issue number can go a long way in ensuring data consistency. Such "measured" data can be compared to the baseline to understand what's working and what isn't.
Building official releases on a build server from a tagged source version pulled from the repository could also be considered beneficial from a project management perspective because it's a way to control quality. Building software this way detaches the build process from any dependencies or specifics of developer machine environments, provide reproducibility, allows robust automatic/semiautomatic publishing of the build etc., i.e. streamlines and shields parts of the deployment process.
These are just some of the possibilities, it doesn't stop here.
Context: I work at a small software company that has traditionally done research-type work, and does not have much experience in the commercial space. We are now trying to push into the commercial world. Due to our origins in research we are used to a very rapid development cycle and very little structure in terms of maintaining proper versions of projects.
Problem: The lack of structure is now proving to be somewhat of a hindrance, as every developer has a slightly different view of the code base. A problem one developer discovers is not reproducible by another developer, and problems found in one build may disappear in the next (or worse, new problems may appear). This makes for a very frustrating experience for someone who is responsible for integrating all the projects and ensuring quality and performance standards are met - i.e. myself.
Potential solution: Personally I am convinced we need to enforce better structure via fixed version numbers and regular releases. It should be self-evident how proper versioning would help with many of our problems, but of course it is not without problems - developers need to do extra work to perform and test releases, and will no longer be able to use the latest versions of everything.
Question: To come to a point - what sorts of strategies do you recommend for ensuring the process and effort required for releases occurs as smoothly as possible? We are using git for version control, maven for our build system, and we have bug tracking and continuous integration systems running, so I believe the tools are there. I am simply unsure about what a proper release process should look like.
You have the big three in place: version control, one-click build via Maven and your continuous build server, and bug tracking. It sounds like you guys are gravitating towards Agile methodologies, and so you ought to be trying to keep the trunk version of your product in a near deliverable state at all times.
When you decide to make your first release, create a branch off of your trunk version for that release. Decide on a labelling scheme and be sure to label the branch version. For example, your first release could be 1.0.4530, where the 1 means first version, the 0 means it's the first release candidate, and the 4530 is the version control change number. You test this release branch and fix important bugs on it. After a while you issue another release candidate, say 1.1.4807. This process iterates a couple more times (say), your release becomes good enough, and you ship version 1.3.5167.
Meanwhile, your new development occurs only in the trunk version, and from time to time you'll need to merge bug fixes from the 1.x release branch back to the trunk. Later, you'll split off a 2.x branch from the trunk to repeat the process for your second release. You'll generally have several active branches (plus the trunk), with development limited to the trunk and each branch kept pristine and independent from development.
You guys will get the hang of things and your developer coordination problems will become less frequent. But these problems are nearly all going to be limited to the trunk, not the release branches.
A problem one developer discovers is
not reproducible by another developer,
and problems found in one build may
disappear in the next (or worse, new
problems may appear). This makes for a
very frustrating experience for
someone who is responsible for
integrating all the projects and
ensuring quality and performance
standards are met - i.e. myself.
Potential solution: Personally I am
convinced we need to enforce better
structure via fixed version numbers
and regular releases.
I don't think you need to have very frequent releases just to coordinate internally. You can do that through version control. Just have people talk about specific git revisions when reporting issues. Also note that you will have to coordinate any external dependencies/libraries too. Some kind of vendor branches could help with this.
It sound like the developers need to use "test branches" and respect the "stable/production branch" a little bit more.
Sell in the concept of "do your wild west stuff in this branch", and when you are happy with the results then you merge it into this "boring stable production branch"....
(or something like that)
There are books written about the general topic; Amazon search even returns three titles for specialized "version control with git."
I think you will benefit from defining a canonical view of the code base. Call it Test. A problem is a problem if it appears in Test. If a problem does not appear in some developer's view, it is up to that developer to figure out what is the important difference; and likewise for a problem that appears in a developer's view, but not in Test.
One convention is for Test to be re-built from sources on a nightly basis. A more strenuous convention is for Test to be re-built upon every update. If your team is small (five or fewer) and not dispersed over great distances or multiple timezones, a reasonable first approximation is to make Test a git workspace on a server upon which your toolchain has been installed along with some cron jobs so that this workspace is updated and rebuilt every night (usually).
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Why should I do Nightly Builds?
You should do nightly builds to ensure that your codebase stays healthy.
A side effect of doing nightly builds is that it forces the team to create and maintain a fully automated build script. This helps to ensure that your build process is documented and repeatable.
Automated builds are good at finding the following problems:
Somebody checked in something that breaks stuff.
Somebody forgot to check in a necessary file or change.
Your build scripts no longer work.
Your build machine is broken.
Doing this nightly ensures that you catch such problems within 24 hours of when they occur. That is preferable to finding all the problems 24 hours before you are supposed to deliver the software.
You should also, of course, have automated unit tests that are run for each nightly build.
I've personally found continuous integration to be better than nightly builds:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_integration
I even use it on one man projects, it's amazing how fast you can expose issues and take care of them right there.
I've been doing build engineering (among other things) for 16 years. I am a strong believer in build-early, build-often, continuous integration. So the first thing I do with a project is establish how it will be built (Java: Ant or Maven; .NET: NAnt or MSBuild) and how it will be managed (Subversion or some other version control). Then I'll add Continuous Integration (CruiseControl or CruiseControl.NET) depending upon the platform, then let the other developers loose.
As the project grows, and the need for reports and documentation grows, eventually the builds will take longer to run. At that point I'll split the builds into continuous builds (run on checkin) that only compile and run unit tests and daily builds that build everything, run all the reports, and build any generated documentation. I may also add a delivery build that tags the repository and does any additional packaging for a customer delivery. I'll use fine-grained build targets to manage the details, so that any developer can build any part of the system -- the Continuous Integration server use the exact same build steps as any developer. Most importantly, we never deliver a build for testing or a customer that wasn't built using the build server.
That's what I do -- here's why I do it (and why you should too):
Suppose you have a typical application, with multiple projects and several developers. While the developers may start with a common, consistent development environment (same OS, same patches, same tools, same compilers), over the course of time their environments will diverge. Some developers will religiously apply all security patches and upgrades, others won't. Some developers will add new (maybe better) tools, others won't. Some will remember to update their complete workspace before building; others will only update the part of the project they're developing. Some developers will add source code and data files to the project, but forget to add them to source control. Others will write unit tests that depend upon specific quirks of their environment. As a consequence, you'll quickly see the ever-popular "Well, it builds/works on my machine" excuses.
By having a separate, stable, consistent, known-good server for building your application, you'll easily discover these sorts of problems, and by running builds from every commit, you'll be able to pinpoint when a problem crept into the system. Even more importantly, because you use a separate server for building and packaging your application, it will always package everything the same way, every time. There is nothing worse than having a developer ship a custom build to a customer, have it work, and then have no idea how to reproduce the customizations.
When I saw this question, first I searched for Joel Spolsky's answer. Bit disappointed, so I planned to add it here.
Hope everyone is aware of Joel Test on Careers.
From his blog on The Joel Test: 12 Steps to Better Code
3. Do you make daily builds?
When you're using source control, sometimes one programmer
accidentally checks in something that breaks the build. For example,
they've added a new source file, and everything compiles fine on their
machine, but they forgot to add the source file to the code
repository. So they lock their machine and go home, oblivious and
happy. But nobody else can work, so they have to go home too, unhappy.
Breaking the build is so bad (and so common) that it helps to make
daily builds, to insure that no breakage goes unnoticed. On large
teams, one good way to insure that breakages are fixed right away is
to do the daily build every afternoon at, say, lunchtime. Everyone
does as many checkins as possible before lunch. When they come back,
the build is done. If it worked, great! Everybody checks out the
latest version of the source and goes on working. If the build failed,
you fix it, but everybody can keep on working with the pre-build,
unbroken version of the source.
On the Excel team we had a rule that whoever broke the build, as their
"punishment", was responsible for babysitting the builds until someone
else broke it. This was a good incentive not to break the build, and a
good way to rotate everyone through the build process so that everyone
learned how it worked.
Though I haven't got an opportunity to make daily builds, I'm a great fan of it.
Still not convinced? Check out the brief here in Daily Builds Are Your Friend!!
You don't actually, what you should be wanting is Continuous Integration and automatic testing (which is a step further than nightly builds).
If you are in any doubt you should read this article by Martin Fowler about Continuous Integration.
To summarize, you want to build and test as early and often as possible to spot errors immediately so they can be fixed while what you were trying to achieve when you caused them is still fresh in your mind.
I'd actually recommend to do builds every time you check in. In other words, I'd recommend setting up a Continuous Integration system.
The advantages of such a system and other details can be found in Fowler's article and on the Wikipedia entry among other places.
In my personal experience, it's a matter of Quality Control: every time code (or tests, which can be seen as a form of requirements) are modified, bugs might be creeping in. To ensure quality you should make a fresh build of the product as it would be shipped and perform all the tests available. The more often this is done, the less likely bugs will be allowed to form a colony. Therefore, daily (nightly) or continuous cycles are preferred.
In addition, whether you restrict access o your project to developers or a larger group of users, a nightly build enables everyone to be on the 'latest version', minimizing the pain of merging their own contributions back into the code.
You want to do builds on a regular schedule in order to catch problems with integration of code between developers. The reason you want to do this nightly, as opposed to weekly or on some longer schedule, is that the longer you wait to discover these kinds of problems, the more difficult it will be to resolve them. The practice of doing a build on every check in (Continuous Integration) is just taking the nightly build process to a logical extreme.
The side benefit of having a repeatable build process is important in the long run as well. If you work on a team where there are multiple projects going on, then at some point you will need to be able to easily recreate an old build, perhaps for creating a patch. :(
The more you can automate the build process, the more time you will save for each subsequent build. It also takes the build process itself off of the critical path of delivering the final product, which should make your manager happy. :)
It also depends on the size and structure of the team(s) working on your project. If there are different teams relying on each others API, it may make a lot of sense to have nightly builds for frequent integration. If you're hacking away with only one or two team mates it may or may not be worth it.
Depending on the complexity of your product continuous integration may or may not be able run a full test suite.
Imagine Cisco testing a router with the literally 1000s of different setups to test. To run a full test suite on some products takes time. Sometimes weeks. So you need builds for different purposes. A nightly build can be the basis for a more thorough test suite.
I think they are very important especially on projects with more than 1 person. The team needs to know ASAP if someone:
checks in a bad file
doesn't check in a file
...
Any build automation is better than no build automation :-)
Personally, I prefer daily builds - that way if the build doesn't work then everyone is around to get it fixed.
In fact, if at all possible then Continuous Integration builds are the way to go (i.e. a build on every check-in) as that minimizes the amount of change between a build and so makes it easy to tell who broke the build and also easy to fix the build.
Well ... I guess it depends a lot on your project, of course. If it's just your hobby project, with no releases, no dependencies, and noone but you submitting code, it might be overkill.
If, on the other hand, there's a team of developers all submitting code, automatic nightly builds will help you ensure the quality of the code in the repository. If someone does something that "breaks the build" for all others, it will quickly be noticed. It is possible to break the build without noticing, for instance by forgetting to add a new file to the repository, and nightly builds in a centralized location will detect these quite quickly.
There are of course other possible benefits, I'm sure others will supply them. :)
Nightly builds are only necessary for significantly large projects (when it takes too long to build it often throughout the day). If you have a small project that does not take long to build you can build it as you get functional pieces of code done so that you know that you did not mess anything up in the procees. However, with larger projects this is not possible so it is important to build the project just so that you know that everything is still in working order
There are several reasons, some will be more applicable than others
If your project is being worked on by two or more people
It's a good way to grab the latest version of code that you aren't working on
A nightly build provides a slice in time of the current state of the code
A nightly build will give you a stable build if you need to send code to people
Nightly builds aren't always necessary - I think they're only really useful on big projects. But if you're on a big project, a nightly build is a good way of checking that everything is working - you can run all your tests (unit tests, integration tests), build all your code - in short, verify that nothing is broken in your project.
If you've got a smaller project your build and test times will be shorter so you can probably afford to do more regular builds.
Nightly builds are ideal for performing static code analysis (see qalab and the projects it collects stats from if you are in java world). Unfortunately, this is something that's rarely done.