At this point we are supporting multiple baselines of functionality. We are about to deliver the most basic functionality to production. So we split out a special branch in Clearcase that does not have any of the lastest changes we are working on. To get ready for the release to production, we needed to create new build scripts which access the new Clearcase branch. You would think this was a simple task. It got assigned a developer that created the build scripts in the first place.
I knew we were in for a rough ride when this person said their Label View in Clearcase was not working. Here is how our build works. It creates a Clearcase label, applies this label to the latest code, then modifies a special label view to see just the code that has the label. The build then uses this view to get a copy of the code to build.
The problem is that the configuration management team does our builds now. And an ambitious system administration team removes your Clearcase views if you do not access them every 30 days. Turns out our developer's view had been deactivated. Today is the day after Christmas. you think we can get this view problem fixed today? Unlikely.
Luckily I had an Outlook reminder that pops up each week. It tells me to run my "Keep Alive" program that touches each of my views. That way the sys admins do not delete the views I need. I was able to help the developer test out the changes to the script so we can build off the new branch. Saved.
