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VA for Java would have survived much longer had it not make a fundamental mistake. The complete project data, UI, configuration, classes, files, etc.,) was st
by chopete3 6y ago
VA for Java would have survived much longer had it not make a
fundamental mistake. The complete project data, UI, configuration, classes, files, etc.,) was stored in a single file. That file appeared more like a database file. That helped it show errors in realtime, keep the project always accurate, and screen transitions slick. It was difficult for multiple developers to work in a single project. It was around the same time source control systems were becoming workplace tools and the concept of multiple developers working on a single file. In those days, it was not still possible for multiple developers (Visual SourceSafe) to work on a single file at a time
- nfrankel 6y agoDefinitely. I used it at my job and the registry (as it was called) was saved on a Windows network drive. As you can imagine, sometimes the network was not so reliable and the registry became corrupted. We had to copy the one of another developer and lost all our work in the process. Fun times!
- projektfu 6y agoThere were a few, e.g. StarTeam and CVS, that allowed concurrent development and merging.
- nathanwallace 6y agoTrue. It was an incredibly powerful model, but developers like files they can see. I mentioned in my earlier comment a "hand-drawn diagram of the architecture" - it was in fact a picture of the exact layout of this database including all the pointer blocks etc between the classes, methods, versions, etc. One project I did was to convert that file format & pointer model to support larger database sizes of 16GB (IIRC). Fun exploring and updating that code. For testing I built a massive fake DB with random classes, methods, etc. The crazy thing was when that fake repo zipped down to almost nothing because it had so much repetition in the names!
- EdwardCoffin 6y agoIBM Smalltalk was perfectly usable for multiple developers. Didn't VA Java just use the ENVY version control from the underlying Smalltalk system? I'm sure they could have.