Book Image

Learning Perforce SCM

By : Neal Ralph Firth, Robert Cowham
Book Image

Learning Perforce SCM

By: Neal Ralph Firth, Robert Cowham

Overview of this book

<p>Learning Perforce SCM is a pragmatic how-to guide, explaining the key concepts and usage of Perforce. Based on the authors' experiences training thousands of users around the globe, it explains those key concepts in a clear, incremental manner, combining sound theory with the pragmatic application of principles.<br /><br />Learning Perforce SCM provides practical knowledge which will transform you into confident and competent Perforce users in your day-to-day operations.<br /><br />You'll start by learning how to use Perforce to track your day-to-day coding activities. Once a solid foundation is established you'll learn how to apply the data mining features to evaluate current and past activities. Then you'll learn how to configure Perforce so that it adapts to support your specific development needs. All the while you'll be learning how to deal with conflicts and use the tool to communicate with other team members. Finally, you'll learn about using branches and streams to provide seamless support for concurrent development. Along the way, pragmatic hints and tips will help you avoid issues and identify areas for further personal exploration.</p> <p><em>"It's wonderful to see a new book about Perforce, especially one written by Robert Cowham and Neal Firth. No one can teach Perforce better than these seasoned subject matter experts"</em><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; -&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em>Laura Wingerd, author of Practical Perforce.</em></p>
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Learning Perforce SCM
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Understanding branching


If you've been exposed to version control then you are probably familiar with the term branching. This is an area within the SCM community where both the terminology and the technology have evolved over time, which has generally been positive for users. An unfortunate side-effect is that, when you think about branching, it is very likely that you're thinking about the implementation characteristics of a particular tool. If this is your situation then clear your thoughts! Attempting to mentally equate classic Perforce branching to the implementation of another version control tool can be very confusing.

Branching is about managing the relationship between the files in two or more branches. This is a great definition except that it requires you know the definition of branch: a branch is a set of files that originated as an exact copy of another set of files and has evolved independently since the copy was made.

Before we finish our exploration of definitions, we need...