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I wrote about Linus's talk a few weeks ago:

http://kylecordes.com/2007/05/17/linux-git-distrib uted/

Looking back at that, and at your comment, some things come to mind:

* the tool Linus is pushing, greatly facilitates the idea of frequent, easy merges, and Linus mentions that a tool with great, fast merges, helps you merge early and often.

* on the other hand, your comment is about "you need to control when and how often [branches] are made...", while a big point of distributed SC tools is the opposite of that control: these tools make the power of the tool fully available to all users. A "main" repository may (and probably should) have permissions/hooks set to enforce some policy about what happens to what branches. Individual users can always create local quasi-branches by simply not checking things in; with a tool like they can can create real (local) branches too, which can then be promoted to official status (i.e. on a blessed central repository) if needed.

I suppose I should have made that an actual link:

Slides and notes from a talk on Java/J2EE and .NET

For some reason I naively assumed it would become a link automatically. If only I would learn to preview...

you couldn't legally use C++ Builder or Delphi/Kylix to write a database engine or an IDE

Makes me wonder what's going to become of Pocket Studio (a Palm compiler based upon and written, I believe, in Delphi) or the various Borland Database Engine alternatives written in Delphi. There are even alternatives to Borland's MIDAS.

Granted, Pocket Studio isn't a directly competitive product, but it all depends on how broadly you interpret the EULA and how tenacious a legal team you can afford. The BDE and MIDAS alternatives make no bones about their intent to cut into Borland's market, however.

you couldn't legally use C++ Builder or Delphi/Kylix to write a database engine or an IDE

Makes me wonder what's going to become of Pocket Studio (a Palm compiler based upon and written, I believe, in Delphi) or the various Borland Database Engine alternatives written in Delphi. There are even alternatives to Borland's MIDAS.

Granted, Pocket Studio isn't a directly competitive product, but it all depends on how broadly you interpret the EULA and how tenacious a legal team you can afford. The BDE and MIDAS alternatives make no bones about their intent to cut into Borland's market, however.

[agile development process to fixed cost contracts]

I work with the customer to divide the project up in to phases / steps / iterations / releases / whatever. Group the most vital core pieces together and do them first, at a fixed cost. As requirement change, these changes either go in to future fixed cost releases, or they are done hourly if requested. Thus, the overall project is not fixed, but at each stage the customer knows what they are buying at what price, and does not have the worry of the "meter running".

There is some related explanation (not a sales pitch) about it on my web site:

http://kylecordes.com/story-182-shared-risk-pricin g.html

There are lots of alternatives to using the BDE including some decent VCL ones.

BDE Alternatives

Interestingly, the Delphi community has produced VASTLY more components, many free or quite inexpensive (with source available) than the much larger groups of people using VB, C++, etc. The only other community with such a large set of components is Perl (CPAN).

Just one category, database access components, sports over 50 entries.

(minor plug warning:) I operate a web site that contains extensive information about database access components:

http://kylecordes.com

It's a lot of work to maintain my list of 50 or so products... maintain a global registry of similar detail would be full time work for several people.