Razor Tool Suite

"Issues was obviously designed by developers who had suffered through archiac tools and decided to invent the perfect tool. They did."

Don Weatherby, Test Manager AT&T

Problem Tracking System: Issues

The heart of the Razor package is a highly configurable problem tracking system. Locally defined problem forms present themselves on screen with text fields, text windows, check boxes, radio buttons, etc, for whatever information is important to your work group. For example...

The estimated effort/cost involved
Whether the issue is approved for resolution
The systems to be affected by the proposed change
Which product release it relates to
Its priority and phase in your schedule

Each new form is automatically numbered and entered into the Razor database. These forms can then be edited and routed to team members electronically, avoiding the clumsy paper and homegrown systems that have become the norm in many companies. Every change to the form is recorded and time stamped with the user's login name, providing complete accountability for changes. Approval and signature lists can be configured into the system to make the package as open or restrictive as each site deems necessary for their process.

File Version Control, (Versions)

Using either SCCS or RCS as the underlying mechanism, Razor provides an intuitive and insightful window interface to all of the standard version control needs; checking files in/out for edit, parallel development, reporting changes, viewing differences, browsing, etc. Additionally, Razor tracks extra information as a team's files evolve over the life of a project, such as change commentary (prose) and issue resolution relationships.

Again, through a highly tailorable interface, each work group is able to assign attributes to each file entered into the system. These may define such things as...

the language of the file (C, C++, Java, VisualBasic, Ada, FORTRAN, etc)
the library or package it relates to
which engineers 'own' it
the completion state
what levels of testing it's passed

The variety and utility of this interface is completely up to each work group. And again, all changes are time stamped with the user's commentary and login name for complete accountability.

Razor can be used to track any files, ASCII and binary. In effect, it can handle scripts, test drivers, documentation, notes, software development files, or any other category appropriate for each particular work group.

Razor: Release Management - Threads

A deliverable software product is typically the culmination and integration of innumerable changes spread across a wide number of files.
Razor provides an easy mechanism for managing all of this. By defining a 'thread', users and teams can manage the packages they are generating.

As with all of the tools in the Razor tool suite, these thread definitions are generated and tracked through a configurable window interface. It is possible to associate attributes to threads, just as they can be associated to files managed by the system. There are facilities to easily gather files from any defined thread into your directory structure, compare different threads, and even compare different versions of the same thread.