Guitars and Vocal: Brian Harmer
Drums: Mickey McGee
Bass: John Viehweg

DrivingBlindDubsL3

DrivingBlindDubs2_l3

HellGtrSnip

Brian’s been pushing us to learn this old Robert Plant solo song for a while (and he’s done a great job working out the guitar part). The rest of us on the other hand, don’t really know the song very well but we did stumble through it a couple times last night. It’s actually starting to come together quite nicely. Considering Mr. Plant spends much of his time in Austin these days, maybe he’ll stop by some night and show us how to do it right?

Dennis Bruhn: percussion
Brian Harmer: guitar, backing vocals, helpful recording tips
Patrick McFarland: keys, backing vocals
John Viehweg: vocal
Chris Vreeland: bass

Thanks again to Brian Hoffman for helping keep the machines running!

String test: Cobalt Nickel

Brian Harmer: Guitar, Vocals. Ceriatone amps: left side is HRM50, right side is JTM45.
John Viehweg: Bass
Mickey McGee: Drums

Driving While Blind Snip

Alternate “blue agave” mix: DrivingBlindSnip3

Dear Friends-

Craig Nietfeld is a good friend and a beloved member of the Austin music community. Craig has fallen ill and has incurred some hefty medical bills due to a recent unexpected hospital stay resulting from heart problems.  Craig is without medical insurance and will be managing his heart condition with medication for the foreseeable future.

Craig needs our help with these costs, along with our prayers, love, and compassion.  There is no contribution too small; we know these are hard and lean times for so many.

Please know that this site feeds directly to Craig’s paypal account, 100% of all donations will go to him and there is no overhead incurred with the “Chip In” service.

Thanks for your help and love to you all!

P.S. Here is a rough jam session recording from a few months back that Craig played (and co-wrote) on.  A little bit of that “Big Daddy Soul” magic:  Fancy Pants
Craig Nietfeld: Bass
John Viehweg: Guitar
Mickey McGee: Drums
Patrick McFarland: Keyboards

In The Light

Too much integration can lead to project instability, increasing the project’s risk. Too much isolation, on the other hand, can postpone discovery of significant integration problems until late in the project lifecycle, which can result in significant rework by the team.

The “out of the box” UCM model promotes the use of individual developer streams. This can lead to too much isolation and require frequent deliver/baseline/rebase cycles for developers to integrate their changes (and contribute to the accumulation of object “clutter” in the repository). In addition to issues with late integration, too much isolation can also open the door for “evil twin” scenarios.

In general, the simplest stream structure that meets the requirements of the team is the best.

Optimizing the UCM Usage Model – Shared Development Streams

With shared development streams, each developer has their own view attached to a shared stream for their development work.

Less complex work environment: provides developers with a simpler check out / check in usage within their stream while still leveraging ClearCase advanced branching and merging capabilities among projects and streams

Easier for developers to access each other’s work

• Developers see each other’s work as soon as the files are checked in
• Allows a more simple serial development model but unreserved checkouts enable parallel development when needed
• Minimal deliver and rebase requirements, less need for baselines, less version tree “clutter”
• Minimize potential isolation issues (evil twins, late integration, etc.)

Less isolation and more integration (both good and bad)

• Developers see each other’s work as soon as the files are checked in – a double edged sword
• Individual streams can be added if needed
• May require more advance planning to determine when additional streams are needed (special projects, long release cycles, etc.)
• May require leveraging advanced ClearCase merge techniques if activities that have been integrated need to be separated

Adjusting developer behavior for shared streams

• Create view on existing stream vs. join project (stream creation)
• Enforcement needed to alter the UCM default behavior that creates streams (trigger on mkstream command)
• Emphasize importance of testing work before checking in files
• Snapshot views can provide an additional layer of isolation
• Understanding reserved vs. unreserved checkouts
• Unreserved allows multiple developers to check out the same file in the same stream. ClearCase requires merge at check in time.
• Important to align stream structures with development team organization, application architecture and release plans

Summary

Optimize stream and component structures for the team based on application architecture, team structure, release schedules, etc.

Ensure proper balance between isolation and integration, reduce deliver/baseline/rebase churn for sharing changes among developers

MaryJane

Fully Profane: HomeAtLast