No fear refactoring in the distributed version control system (DVCS) age - Enter SemanticMerge

Location:

Marina Room

Track:

Solutions Track: Big Data, Spring XD, DVCS, API Management

Time:

Tuesday, 1:35pm - 2:25pm

Abstract:

Half a decade ago, version control status quo was broken; that is, until Git and the new DVCS changed the landscape of software development.

We're now in the distributed version control age with teams embracing fully distributed (several sites) and strong parallel development best practices. Ask any developer facing a very common operation, diff and merge, and they'll tell you: "I wish it was able to understand the code structure". This is what SemanticMerge is all about.

SemanticMerge is the starting point for a new breed of tools, deeply integrated with DVCS practices that calculates differences and performs merges based on code parsing, instead of just comparing text blocks. It's not 1980 anymore!

SemanticMerge is not just a cool tool; rather, it's here on a mission to enable the refactoring of code to improve readability and maintainability.

The only reason why teams do not refactor more often is because they have to work in parallel and merge code, which can be a real pain without proper tool support. This is precisely the SemanticMerge mission: turn impossible merges into trivial ones!

This session will cover:

How to diff and merge refactored code with SemanticMerge
Under the hood: the inner workings of the tool
Next step: multi-file SemanticMerge
Towards Semantic version control

Pablo Santos

Pablo is a globally recognized expert in Software Configuration Manager and founder of Codice Software. Pablo co-founded Codice Software in 2005 and has since played several roles ranging from core engineering to marketing, business development, and advertising and sales operations. He is the main contributor and technical evangelist to the Codice blog, speaker on software events, and occasional writer on various technical magazines. In 2004, Pablo joined the regional professional association of computing engineers as vice-dean and moved to dean in 2008, a position he still holds today. Pablo is an associate professor in the University of Burgos, where he is very involved in the training of young engineers teaching project management, including important areas such as agile methods and software configuration management. He received his Masters Degree in Computing Engineering back in 2000 (University of Valladolid, Spain). What makes Pablo, and the entire team, tick is the opportunity to create tools like SemanticMerge and PlasticSCM to empower developers on their daily jobs, being able to get involved as a key part of projects ranging from banking to AAA games, aeronautics to car manufacturing. He also loves motor-bikes, especially track days, including long touring trips.