na-mic, 2008 june workshop, ihk akademie westerham engineering methodology

NA-MIC, 2008 June Workshop, IHK Akademie Westerham

Engineering Methodology

Sebastien BARRE, Ph.D. - Kitware, Inc.

June 16-17, 2008 NA-MIC, 2008 June Workshop, IHK Akademie Westerham 2

Outline

• Software Process, Extreme Programming• The components of the NA-MIC kit software engineering tools:

• CMake• CPack• CTest• CDash• KWStyle

June 16-17, 2008NA-MIC, 2008 June Workshop, IHK Akademie Westerham 2


Software Process, Extreme Programming



Challenges

• Software is larger and more complex than ever• Complex software requires teams; multi-site, multi-disciplinary,

multi-layered, academic and commercial• Complex software demands long-term maintenance• Testing is vital to insure quality• Documentation needs are greater• Managing change to the system is critical to capture bug fixes• Abundance of computer configurations (hard/software, OS)

means addressing cross-platform issues



Our solution

• A methodology developed over several years in support of large-scale open-source projects

• A methodology based on the principles of agile-programming or extreme-programming (late 90´s)

• Ultimate Goal:• A production software release every day



Extreme Programming

The idea is that the standard development tasks:• requirements generation,• software design,• managing source code versions and updates,• configuring projects for specific platforms,• compilation and linking,• testing the code at run time,• verifying the validity of output,• documenting the code,• tracking and repairing bugs

are performed continuously rather than in a waterfall fashion.


Extreme Programming (cont.)


Heart and Soul of the Process

• Testing is the mantra• Every night• Every time changes are made• Every time new computing platforms are introduced• “If is isn’t tested, it doesn’t work”

• The results are posted to a web page for everyone to monitor• All developers have the right and encouragement to repair

errors

• A feedback loop is created between the community and the automated processes that measure software quality


Heart and Soul of the Process (cont.)

CVS/SVN

Results posted on web(the dashboard)

Source coderepository Testing client compiles

source code, runs tests

Developers review results

Developers check-in code



The community owns the code

• Although the identity of the original author is kept, other developers are free to correct defects and enhance each other's code

• In the end, all of the software should appear as though one author wrote it



Release early, release often

• Although developers are tempted to keep their code under wraps until it is perfect, the process encourages them to release their code as soon as it passes some minimum tests

• The longer the code is visible to the community, the better integrated it will be



Continuous integration

• There is no scheduled porting to computer platforms• All new software builds on supported platforms every evening



All developers agree to keep the software defect free

• Although everyone is encouraged to submit their code early, the code must compile and pass tests nightly

• A continuous build process sends e-mails to developers who check in code that does not compile

• More effectively, the community enforces the commitment though peer pressure


Software Process Tools

• Communication and Documentation• Revision Control• Build Management • Testing• Release process


Communication and Documentation

• Mailing lists• Wiki• Online documentation (Doxygen)• Issue/Bug Tracker• IM, TCON, VCON


Mailing Lists

• Mailman list manager• http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/• Two lists per project

• developer – discussion about implementation details• user – discussion by users about how to use it

• Provides a searchable archive• Dynamic, quick exchange of information


Wiki

• Powerful collaborative websites or intranets• http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki• Easy to setup• Easy to edit• Don´t forget to backup


Doxygen

• Literate programming concepts• combine source and documentation

• http://www.stack.nl/~dimitri/doxygen/docblocks.html • Run every night• Simple markup for C++/C code

/** * ... text ... */ /*! * ... text ... */

/*! \brief Brief description. * Brief description continued. * Detailed description starts here. */


Doxygen (cont.)

From vtkActor.h:

// Description:

// This causes the actor to be rendered. It in turn will render the actor's

// property, texture map and then mapper. If a property hasn't been

// assigned, then the actor will create one automatically. Note that a side

// effect of this method is that the pipeline will be updated.

virtual void Render(vtkRenderer *, vtkMapper *) {}

http://www.vtk.org/doc/nightly/html/classvtkActor.html


Issue Tracker

• Web based issue tracker is required to keep track of bugs and fixes

• Tracker of choice: Mantis http://www.mantisbt.org/• Requires periodic “triage” (usually before a major release)


Revision Control

• Projects evolve over time• Who changed what? When? Why?• SCM tools like CVS or SVN maintain a central repository of

source code in which developers retrieve, modify and commit files and changes to files.

<html><body>Hello, World!</body></html>

sample.html<html><head><title>Simple Example</title></head><body>Hello, World!</body></html>

sample.html


Revision Control (cont.)

• Commit• Date/time of change• Log message describing change• Person making the change• Versions before and after change

• Commits can conflict, but the repository will not lock• Commits can be referenced in bug trackers



• Traditionally, history is always a tree• Each development path is a branch

trunk

release-1_2

release-1_0

= Version/Revision/State= Commit (new state and pointer to old)= Series of Commits



Repository

Working Tree

Working Tree

Working Tree

Working Tree

Working Tree

= flow of changes

W.T.

Repo

RepositoryW.T.

Repo

W.T.

Repo

W.T.

Repo

W.T.

Repo


Build Management

• Often overlooked• CMake is the (Kitware) answer, more about it later…


Testing

• Smoke test • does it compile• does it run and not crash

• Regression testing• If something fails track, find the change and fix it• harder to implement

• CTest/Cdash/DART are used; more about it later...


Release Process

• One person freezes and maintains the release branch• Two types of release

• Binary• Source

• CPack – tool to create release packages; more about it later


Software Process Tools Summary

• CMake – cross platform building• Dashboards, CTest, CDash, DART – continuous testing• Mailman Mailing List – Developer communication• Wiki – Store developer communication• Doxygen – Online documentation• Mantis Bug Tracker – keep track of bugs and feature requests• Revision control – cvs, svn• CPack – release management


Software Process Tools Summary


Conclusion

• A set of tools, a set of rules and practices that creates a feedback loop resulting in higher quality code

• But it does require some discipline• Paying attention to the dashboard• Picking enforcers• Creating tests



CMake



• 1999 Start of the Insight Segmentation and Registration Toolkit (ITK) funded by NLM as part of the Visible Human Project www.itk.org www.itk.org

• Kitware tasked with build environment• VTK current build system

• autoconf on UNIX• pcmaker on Windows• Very specific to VTK and hard to maintain

• CMake born out of necessity • 2006 KDE desktop adopted CMake

Why CMake


CMake Features

• Single input format for all platforms• Generate native build files

• Visual Studio 6/7/8/9• Nmake, borland make, unix make• Xcode• KDevelop• Eclipse

• Platform inspection tool can search for• Programs• Libraries• Include paths• Determine hardware specifics like byte order


CMake Features (cont.)

• Linux, SunOS, HPUX, IRIX, Windows, Mac OSX, QNX, etc.• Simple, easy to use• Support complex, large build environments (KDE, ParaView,

SecondLife)

• Do not require any software other than CMake to be installed. • Need only a C++ compiler (same as ITK itself)

• Full cross platform install system• Comes with a GUI layer for easy edition of input variables.


Windows GUI

Unix GUI

CMakeLists.txt

MSVCProject

.NET Solution

Makefile

Userselects

CMake Example Usage


CMake GUI Process Flow

Configure

Write CMakeCache.txt

Did Cache

Change?

Yes

No

GenerateMakefile or

Project


A very simple project (see how easy it is!)

Files needed:• Hello.c • CMakeLists.txt

The CMakeLists.txt file would contain two lines: • PROJECT(Hello) • ADD_EXECUTABLE(Hello Hello.c)


Basic CMake Syntax

• COMMAND_NAME(space separated arguments) • command can be upper or lower case• SCREAM_COMMAND or quiet_command

• Variables• SET(VAR value)• Semi-colon separated lists

• SET(VAR “a b c”) - VAR holds one thing• SET(VAR a;b;c) or SET(VAR a b c) – VAR holds three

things• LIST or FOREACH will get access to each thing


Flow control (IF)

IF(VAR) codeENDIF(VAR)

IF(NOT VAR)IF(VAR AND VAR2)IF(VAR OR VAR2)IF(VAR MATCHES regular_expression)IF(COMMAND command)IF(EXISTS file)IF(VAR LESS VAR2)


Flow control (FOREACH WHILE)

foreach(F a b c) message(${F})endforeach(F)

while(VAR) message(${VAR}) set(VAR FALSE)endwhile(VAR)


FIND_PACKAGE

• Easy for smaller projects to use larger projects

project(SampleProject)

find_package(VTK REQUIRED)

include(${VTK_USE_FILE})

set(SOURCES mySource1.cxx mySource2.cxx)

add_executable(myExecutable ${SOURCES})

target_link_libraries(myExecutable vtkRendering)


CMake Advanced Features

• Shared library and DLL building• Support code generation at build time (VTK wrappers, Qt’s moc)• Create configured .h files

• Automatic dependency generation• Parallel builds • Out of source builds• Command line support• Create OSX library frameworks and application bundles • Cross compiling• Integrated testing system called Ctest• Integrated packaging system called Cpack• Easy integration with CDash and Dart dashboard servers• And more...

June 16-17, 2008 NA-MIC, 2008 June Workshop, IHK Akademie Westerham 43June 16-17, 2008NA-MIC, 2008 June Workshop, IHK Akademie Westerham 43

Find more about CMake…

• Online documentation• http://cmake.org• Wiki• FAQ• Mailing list

• Books• Mastering Cmake


CPack



CPack

• Cross platform packaging and distribution tool• Package binary into native package format• Distributed with CMake


CPack Features

• Support both CMake and Non-CMake projects• Unix:

• TGZ, TZ, TBZ2, • STGZ (Self extract TGZ), • RPM• DEB

• Windows:• NullSoft Scriptable Install System (NSIS), • ZIP

• Mac OSX:• PackageMaker• OSXX11 (Mac OSX X11 Bundle)


Using CPack

• On Windows install command line ZIP program, and NSIS• Setup your project to work with CPack

• Get make install to work• install(…)• make sure you executables work with relative paths and

can work from any directory• set CPack option variables if needed (license, version, etc.)• include(CPack)

• Run CPack• make package (create all packages)• make package_source (create source package)• cpack -C CPackConfig.cmake -G NSIS• cpack -C CPackConfig.cmake -G ZIP• cpack -C CPackSourceConfig.cmake -G ZIP


Using CPack Simple Example

project(CoolStuff)add_executable(coolstuff coolstuff.cxx)install(TARGETS coolstuff RUNTIME DESTINATION bin)SET(CPACK_PACKAGE_EXECUTABLES "coolstuff" "The Cool Stuff") # used by NSISinclude(CPack)

$ make package[100%] Built target coolstuffRun CPack packaging tool...CPack: Create package using NSISCPack: Install projectsCPack: - Run preinstall target for: CoolStuffCPack: - Install project: CoolStuffCPack: Compress packageCPack: Finalize packageCPack: Package C:/CoolStuffExample/CoolStuff-0.1.1-win32.exe generated.CPack: Create package using ZIPCPack: Install projectsCPack: - Run preinstall target for: CoolStuffCPack: - Install project: CoolStuffCPack: Compress packageCPack: Finalize packageCPack: Package C:/CoolStuffExample/CoolStuff-0.1.1-win32.zip generated.

June 16-17, 2008 NA-MIC, 2008 June Workshop, IHK Akademie Westerham 49June 16-17, 2008NA-MIC, 2008 June Workshop, IHK Akademie Westerham 49

Find more about CPack…

• Online documentation• http://cmake.org• Wiki

• http://www.cmake.org/Wiki/CMake:Packaging_With_CPack• http://www.cmake.org/Wiki/CMake:CPackConfiguration• http://www.cmake.org/Wiki/CMake:CPackPackageGenerators

• Books• Mastering CMake

na-mic, 2008 june workshop, ihk akademie westerham engineering methodology

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