One tool to rule them all? Integration or survival of the fittest Carina Haupt German Aerospace Center (DLR) Department Intelligent and Distributed Systems Berlin / Braunschweig / Cologne Research Software Engineering Conference 2017

Software Development @ DLR Some numbers > RSE Conference 2017 > Haupt, Carina • One tool to rule them all? Integration or survival of the fittest > 08.09.2017 Software Development @ DLR Some numbers Some numbers More than 8000 employees More than 1500 employees develop software More than 150 Mio EUR personnel costs per year for software development → DLR is one of the biggest „software houses“ in Germany Characteristics „Developer“ often do not have any training in software development Variety of used software technologies i.E. over 30 programming languages 2005 Umfrage < 100 gelernte Informatiker

Where we started Software Engineering Tools @ DLR > RSE Conference 2017 > Haupt, Carina • One tool to rule them all? Integration or survival of the fittest > 08.09.2017 Where we started Software Engineering Tools @ DLR Team Version Control System planning quality checks changes Build Run Test feedback Issue Tracker Integration-Server

The Naive Approach Survival of the fittest > RSE Conference 2017 > Haupt, Carina • One tool to rule them all? Integration or survival of the fittest > 08.09.2017 The Naive Approach Survival of the fittest CVS Find the best tool for each task

But wait…perhaps lets ask the users first! The study > RSE Conference 2017 > Haupt, Carina • One tool to rule them all? Integration or survival of the fittest > 08.09.2017 But wait…perhaps lets ask the users first! The study Which ressources do we have to access „users“? Brainstorming Survey Expert Interviews DLR SE-Workshops: Yearly meeting of SE interested employees DLR SE-Network: Each institute has one point of contact for all SE needs Personal network

What the users said Characterisation of development > RSE Conference 2017 > Haupt, Carina • One tool to rule them all? Integration or survival of the fittest > 08.09.2017 What the users said Characterisation of development Aimed project quality ~ 50 % basic ~ 30 % medium ~ 20 % high Team sizes Mainly one person projects Similar amount of small (2-6 person) and medium sized teams (6-20 person) Few big teams (> 20 person) Currently used tools Mainly SVN & Mantis Self hosted alternatives (Git, Jira) Additional tooling (mainly Jenkins for CI)

What the users said Requirements (extract) > RSE Conference 2017 > Haupt, Carina • One tool to rule them all? Integration or survival of the fittest > 08.09.2017 What the users said Requirements (extract) High level overview of project Different views for different roles Planning possibilities (roadmap, backlog, sprints) Version control system Code collaboration Merge support Issue tracking Documentation Automatization (Continuous Integration, Deployment) Integration of issues, documentation, code IDE integration Access control (external users) Easy and fast setup Easy to use

What the users said Our results > RSE Conference 2017 > Haupt, Carina • One tool to rule them all? Integration or survival of the fittest > 08.09.2017 What the users said Our results Requirements Easy to setup Easy to use Easy to learn Highly integrated tools To be covered functionality Source code repository Issue tracking Documentation Continous Integration Reports (for project head) Target group Projects aiming for basic or medium quality → High quality projects set up their own tools One person and small sized teams → Have no resources for overhead

What the users said Our results > RSE Conference 2017 > Haupt, Carina • One tool to rule them all? Integration or survival of the fittest > 08.09.2017 What the users said Our results What we learned „Easy“ and integration beats missing functionality If it is not easy to set up, people will not use it If it is not easy to use, projects will not keep using it Our decision → We go with a simple integrated software engineering tool suite The facts Multiple tools mean more setup work Powerful tools mean more to learn Integrated tools have less features

The New Approach One tool to rule them all > RSE Conference 2017 > Haupt, Carina • One tool to rule them all? Integration or survival of the fittest > 08.09.2017 The New Approach One tool to rule them all Source Code Repository Issue Tracker Documentation CI +

The Feedback What our test group said > RSE Conference 2017 > Haupt, Carina • One tool to rule them all? Integration or survival of the fittest > 08.09.2017 The Feedback What our test group said Testversion at facility „Simulation and Software Technology“ Stats (04.09.2017) 117 active users 48 GitLab groups 388 GitLab projects 266 mile stones 2438 issues 19892 comments 3354 builds Users Everybody for everything Start 2014 pilot -> 08.2016 EE version GitLab Stats (12.12.2016) 73 active users 32 GitLab groups 218 GitLab projects 164 mile stones 864 issues 5590 comments 815 builds   GitLab Stats (04.09.2017) 117 active users 48 GitLab groups 388 GitLab projects 266 mile stones 2438 issues 19892 comments 3354 builds Everybody Researcher Students PHDs IT Head of departments Everything Software projects Scripts Code snippets Configurations Papers Thesis / Project reports They love Groups Private area Snippets They don’t love Viewing/Access restrictions between groups (configuration / company rules)

Questions? If it is not easy, people will not use it -> they are scientists, not coders