1. 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

2. Software Development @ DLR Some numbers
> RSE Conference 2017 > Haupt, Carina • One tool to rule them all? Integration or survival of the fittest >
Software 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

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

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

5. 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 >
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

6. What the users said Characterisation of development
> RSE Conference 2017 > Haupt, Carina • One tool to rule them all? Integration or survival of the fittest >
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)

7. What the users said Requirements (extract)
> RSE Conference 2017 > Haupt, Carina • One tool to rule them all? Integration or survival of the fittest >
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

8. What the users said Our results
> RSE Conference 2017 > Haupt, Carina • One tool to rule them all? Integration or survival of the fittest >
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

9. What the users said Our results
> RSE Conference 2017 > Haupt, Carina • One tool to rule them all? Integration or survival of the fittest >
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

10. 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 >
The New Approach One tool to rule them all
Source Code Repository
Issue Tracker
Documentation CI +

11. The Feedback What our test group said
> RSE Conference 2017 > Haupt, Carina • One tool to rule them all? Integration or survival of the fittest >
The Feedback What our test group said
Testversion at facility „Simulation and Software Technology“
Stats ( )
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 -> EE version
GitLab Stats ( )
73 active users
32 GitLab groups
218 GitLab projects
164 mile stones
864 issues
5590 comments
815 builds
GitLab Stats ( )
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)

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