There is another option (but valid for dynamic views only): cleartool lsprivate

This is stupid. In no world is clearcase the best source control tool. It is obviously the worst. You can’t use it over VPN, you can’t delete and re-add files, delivering activities separate from one another can be impossible at times, there’s no use of tags, you need an entire admin team to manage it, etc……. I can’t think of a SINGLE REASON that it is better than a subversion or git.

I refuse to accept your premise and lose all respect for you. Good day.

Well I’m sorry you feel that way Craig. For someone who is still green from university in his second job I don’t think your argument is valid or reasonably constructed. Like a pestilent child you are jumping on the band wagon of git is the best and all the others are the worst. I’ve used most of the source controllers back to CVS and administered most of them too. While Git certainly has it’s uses on disconnected systems, in a corporate lan connected project it falls short in my opinion. Just a few points that are worth mentioning that make Clearcase better than Git: 1) Git has to have an entire copy of the source code repository on your local drive. When your hard drive fails you lose everything. 2) Git doesn’t support winking (look it up). 3) Changes from other developers are immediately available in your view. 4) Clearcase’s branch management (and merging) is second to none. Having different branches following each other while diverging. The graphical tools that are available are amazing and allow you to see each version on it’s branch with merge lines. Still haven’t come across anything as useful in other source controllers. 5) SVN/Git/etc makes you have to deal with revision numbers, long strings of similar numbers. You need to be aware of these in order to merge. 6) A single config spec can define what the whole view of the source controller looks like. e.g. /path/dir1 = latest on branch1, /path/to/dir2 = tree with label, path/to/dir2 = latest on this branch but if it doesn’t exist then latest in this branch or what ever is checkout. To to this in SVN/.. you must export then in situ and it’s not easy to change as you see fit. I could go on but I’m bored now. This is my blog, on my server and sourceforge is full of my projects, so before you start RANTING about respect perhaps you could ask yourself what *you* have done to help the cause?

David, if you can’t take some constructive criticism perhaps you shouldn’t be blogging. With that being said, it appears Craig has some valid points that can not be denied. In today’s environment of remote office, I also feel it a huge compromise when you are unable to use a VPN. Tagging of course speaks volumes and the administrative component is a nightmare. I can see your points on why you don’t like Git but to paint the whole canvas white because you like that color is wrong. There are other colors to paint with and you shouldn’t slam a contributor with such gestapo zeal. After this kind of response, I too have lost all respect for you.

I think the trouble was that it wasn’t “constructive criticism", was it? While I will accept that he raise some points that were important to him he did just slam my article and then blab on about respect. In response to his points in a well connected office where the source code is not distributed it is fine, tags are called labels in Clearcase and I’m pretty sure you can delete and re-add files! For all the things I want Clearcase is the best source controller. I didn’t mention anything about the world, only my opinion, which makes me perfectly suited for blogging ;p

lol “Clearcase is the best source controller I have ever used.” what a gas.

This article is now 12 years old. Clearcase is practically dead and git is the new king. I’ve been on git for the last 5 years or so but I still miss all the bundled tools you got with Clearcase for dealing with branches and cherry-picking commits. The first person to bleet on about cherry-picking gets a slap with a wet fish: this is corporate world and last minute deals are made by squeezing features in on to branches they were never supposed to be on!

I happened to stumble on here when trying to remember how to query for hidden files, and I happened to take a look at the comments.

The first comment: great! An actually beneficial and useful comment that is worth posting on a site like this.

Craig’s comment is an absolute waste of time and was laughably referred to as constructive criticism. I’m hoping Craig was just having a bad day. If not, I certainly hope Craig is not responsible for architecting software and managing teams.

I’m certainly not a die-hard lover of Clearcase and would opt to use git whenever possible, but people that bash Clearcase without recognizing some of the feature benefits it has over other tools like git, have clearly not used Clearcase enough to provide reputable critiques of the tool. To throw additional salt in the wound, in case you decide to post dumb ass comments on other blogs in the future, the following is a good template to follow for people to give a shit what you have to say: “Although the tool ____ provides the following features: ____, ____, & ____, the tool ____ does a better job at ____. Although the following are tradeoffs with using ____, under the conditions _____, it is more suitable.”