Today we published a great piece by Joe Farah over at CM Crossroads. Joe Farah has been working in software field since the late 1960s, and he’s personally witnessed the ever-evolving world of software tools throughout his career.

His piece entitled, “CM: The Next Generation—Tailoring CM and ALM Tools,“ takes a look at the multi-generational world of configuration management and application lifecycle management tools, of which he defines using a handy classification method. 

From the article: There is a plethora of configuration management (CM) and application lifecycle management (ALM) tools out there, most of which I would classify as second generation, or 2G, tools. A precious few are 3G tools, while there are a number of 1G tools, and one that I would classify as 4G.

Given all of these tools contain CM capabilities, what's the biggest factor that makes one tool stand out from another? Well, there are a lot of candidates: Level of administration, reliability and availability, multiple site global CM capabilities, and end-to-end integration. However, I believe the biggest factor is the area of customization, configuration, and tailoring.

Farah goes on to compare and contrast the different generational tools:

A 1G tool deals only with source code control and build support. Customizing it to support project management is not an option. Trying to create fancy user interfaces is not an option. There may be some very basic trigger capability to help customize to your process needs, but for the most part, you use the tool's basic components and script around it to provide a higher level of functionality.

In a 2G solution, you have the ability to integrate point solutions to form a wider ALM solution. The user interface can be customized by changing forms and views, customizing reports, and adding menu items. These are not trivial tasks. If you want to add a slick dashboard to show project status, you're probably talking about a reasonably significant development effort. Creating rules and triggers can be script intensive, but can help to integrate the point solutions.

A great informative read on the history of ALM and CM tools.