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Getting a Grip on Google Code

Posted by Zonk on from the improving-on-the-old dept.

netbuzz writes "Niall Kennedy reports on his blog that Guido van Rossum, author of the Python programming language, has begun showing off his first project since joining Google last year. 'Mondrian is a Web-based code-review system built on top of a Perforce and BigTable backend with a Python-powered front-end,' Kennedy writes. 'Mondrian is a pretty impressive system and is currently in use across Google.' Kennedy's description of Google's current code-review system sure makes it sound like it was in need of an upgrade. 'The Mondrian tool creates a much better workflow by creating task-specific dashboards, in-line commenting, well-tracked statistics, and more,' he writes. 'The application is built on top of Python open source libraries such as the Django framework, smtpd.py mail service, and the wsgiref Web server software.'"

91 comments

  1. google knows what it's all about by eneville · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    python all the way! or ruby..

    --
    Why UNIX?
    1. Re:google knows what it's all about by masklinn · · Score: 1

      Mmm no, what google knows it's about is "the tool that fits the task best".

      In this case -- the creator of the Python language having to build a webby app -- the obvious tool was much more likely to be Python than, say, Java. Or even actually good languages like Smalltalk, or Forth, or Erlang.

      --
      "The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
    2. Re:google knows what it's all about by El_Muerte_TDS · · Score: 4, Funny

      And actually good documentation is written in Latin, or Hieroglyphs, or Sanskrit.

    3. Re:google knows what it's all about by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I find your sig really annoying.

    4. Re:google knows what it's all about by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ZING!

    5. Re:google knows what it's all about by masklinn · · Score: 1

      Oh really? I'll change it then

      --
      "The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
  2. HAHA by lauPi · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    first!

  3. Swing and a... by chefjoeardee · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    miss. Thanks for playing, come back soon.

  4. I can see why Google stuck with Python. by James+A.+V.+Joyce · · Score: -1

    Does Ruby support 8-bit characters and Unicode yet? Or load balancing, or HTTPS? Didn't think so.

    1. Re:I can see why Google stuck with Python. by Peter+Cooper · · Score: 4, Insightful

      8 bit characters is exactly what it /does/ support. It's multi-byte characters that are often seen as the problem, although UTF-8 is also supported (Unicode generally, however, is a different matter). Ruby can also support load balancing and HTTPS.. although since those aren't relevant to a programming language per se, it's intriguing why you bring them up (unless I've fallen for a troll, in which case.. well done ;-))

    2. Re:I can see why Google stuck with Python. by masklinn · · Score: 1

      AFAIK stuff like load balancing or HTTPS are handled by HTTP servers/balancers/fronts (or at least TCP balancers for load balancing) and stuff, not by the language used to create the site... If you're going it an other way, you're likely to be doing it very wrong.

      And apart from that, modern Ruby webapps actually have fairly good deployment solutions, e.g. Mongrel.

      Unicode in ruby still sucks though

      --
      "The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
    3. Re:I can see why Google stuck with Python. by masklinn · · Score: 3, Informative

      although UTF-8 is also supported (Unicode generally, however, is a different matter)

      Uh, UTF-8 is a Unicode Transformation Format, that's usually (that or UTF-16) what people talk about when they mention "Unicode". And Ruby definitely sucks at anything out of the ascii character space, be it inside or at the boundaries (interfacing with the outer world).

      --
      "The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
    4. Re:I can see why Google stuck with Python. by Dr.+Smeegee · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Try giving a deep, suculent "yard of tongue down your throat" soul kiss to the suspected troll. Watch in the closet door mirror: If their spine lights up IT'S A CYLON! FOR GOD'S SAKE RUN! Otherwise it's probably a troll.

      If you want to go ahead and have sex with the Cylon before you run, that's your business.

    5. Re:I can see why Google stuck with Python. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I think the problem WITH Ruby is that its making the same mistake as Smalltalk. Everything has to be a object, but this isn't always true. Some things are better modeled with generic functions, or other Functional style paradigms. Python is picking from both worlds. I think my ideal language would be a blend of Haskell and Python in some form. Ocaml comes close, but has it's own weirdness, with '+' and '+.' etc etc.

      IE:

      Why do numbers need to know about iteration? From Smalltalk:
      1 to: 3 do: [ Something ]

      There are several other examples as well of this kind of impedance mismatch. Objects get CLUTTERED with cruft, because that's the only place you can stick behaviour.

      Objects are nice, but not everything fits in that paradigm. I think blended languages are the way of the future. Perl developers flock to Ruby because it has objects with a few Perlisms, but Smalltalk was rocking that world 20 years ago.

      There are some exciting developments on the horizon, but they aren't mature yet.

    6. Re:I can see why Google stuck with Python. by Peter+Cooper · · Score: 1

      UTF-8 is the de facto standard encoding of Unicode characters, but in the interests of not having someone respond with "but Unicode != UTF-8" I thought I'd add the proviso (although it opened me to complaints of the opposite nature, of course ;-))

    7. Re:I can see why Google stuck with Python. by mini+me · · Score: 3, Informative
      Unicode in ruby still sucks though

      It could be better, but it's not that bad:

      >> message = "¼ and ½"
      => "¼ and ½"
      >> message.chars.length
      => 7
      >> message.chars.last.to_s
      => "½"
      >> message.chars.normalize.to_s
      => "1/4 and 1/2"
  5. Perforce? by Tack · · Score: -1, Troll

    It had me interested until I read "perforce."

    My eyes! The goggles do nothing!

    1. Re:Perforce? by slyborg · · Score: 2, Interesting

      ?? What's wrong with Perforce?

    2. Re:Perforce? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      Perforce does support change sets, which you have to bend over backwards to implement in SVN or CVS.

    3. Re:Perforce? by rmull · · Score: 1

      Anyone who's used perforce will understand. I read this and it made me very, very jealous.

      --
      See you, space cowboy...
    4. Re:Perforce? by panaceaa · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I'm not sure how you decided Perforce is a "barely mid-level player" in the SCM market. Adobe, Google, and Microsoft all use Perforce as their primary source code management solution. (Though Microsoft has highly modified it and calls it something else internally... but my contacts there tell me it's still Perforce underneath.) Perforce does have its problems with scalability, but in terms of merging, collaborating, viewing history, keeping branches, etc, etc, etc, it's pretty awesome.

      --
      my blog
    5. Re:Perforce? by Surt · · Score: 1

      ?? What's wrong with Perforce? The price.
      Ouch.
      --
      "Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
    6. Re:Perforce? by Schapsmann · · Score: 1

      Why would linux kernel maintainers have used a proprietary SCMS all these years, if it wasn't simply the best suited tool for that purpose? (bitkeeper)

    7. Re:Perforce? by slamb · · Score: 5, Informative
      Good idea, building on a closed-source SCMS that's (barely!) a mid-level player in the market. I can understand not wanting ClearCase, but what's wrong with CVS or Subversion?

      I use both Subversion and Perforce. There's one major feature still lacking from Subversion: merge tracking. There's work underway to design, implement, and document this feature, but it's not done yet. This is a huge deal for anyone with lots of branches.

      Not that it's all roses with Perforce. My impression is that it doesn't scale very well. Most operations simply lock the entire database. I think it's a reader/writer lock, but it means that (for example) while the hour-long checkpointing pre-backup process happens every night, you can't do any write operations. (And there's a way to do an offline checkpoint, but it's not documented or supported, and is difficult to get right, with bad consequences if you don't.)

    8. Re:Perforce? by slamb · · Score: 4, Interesting
      It means that (for example) while the hour-long checkpointing pre-backup process happens every night, you can't do any write operations.

      Let me be a little more specific: while the hour-long checkpointing process is happening, you can't even open files for edit. In addition to having really course locking, Perforce has more write operations than most version control systems. Subversion's CVS-style working copy means the only write operations are commits and revpropsets.

    9. Re:Perforce? by adwb · · Score: 1

      Microsoft uses a modified version of the Perforce SCM for all of their internal code management. I personally use Subversion on a daily basis at work and on my SourceForge projects but I guess if it's good enough for Microsofts development teams it's good enough for Google to build a custom version too.

    10. Re:Perforce? by novitk · · Score: 3, Informative

      The main reason for starting SVN was that a lot of things were wrong with CVS. Arguably SVN(nevermind Monotone, Arch) has only recently approached Perforce level of stability, scalability and functionality. They needed something workable probably at least five years prior. ClearCase is clearly not a Google-style solution.

      Looks like a good choice to me.

    11. Re:Perforce? by Electrum · · Score: 4, Informative

      Adobe, Google, and Microsoft all use Perforce as their primary source code management solution.

      Amazon does too.

    12. Re:Perforce? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Interesting you say it has its problems with scalability. I've seen scalability sucking under Perforce too. However, their website (http://www.perforce.com/perforce/products.html) says:

      "The Perforce Software Configuration Management System features comprehensive SCM capabilities built around a scalable client/server architecture."

      Certainly that reads like BS in my experience...

    13. Re:Perforce? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Subversion is based on changesets as well. Its model is virtually identical to Perforce's, and quite far from CVS's.

    14. Re:Perforce? by Mike+McTernan · · Score: 4, Informative

      > Not that it's all roses with Perforce. My impression is that it doesn't scale
      > very well. Most operations simply lock the entire database.

      I agree - the backup solution described and recommended by Perforce works well for small installations, but doesn't scale very well in my experience. It's disappointing given that Perforce use scalability as a selling feature (http://www.perforce.com/perforce/products.html).

      I went on a limb and made an alternative way to do checkpoints/backups for exactly the reason you describe - it's difficult to get right and seriously bad if you get it wrong. The write up of what I do is here:

      http://www.mcternan.co.uk/PerforceBackup/

      In my opinion it would be simple for Perforce to implement some simple changes to help large scale backups (e.g. make p4d -jj -c "cmd" work), and I've suggested it to their support staff, some of whom I've met in person at various times. However, I haven't heard or seen any indication that they are going to do this... I'm still hopeful, but less so these days.

      I also believe that Perforce only does locking at the table level (using flock()), which is most likely why the server often sees poor concurrency, especially with write operations as you describe. The more recent versions of the server are apparently better (2006.x), although I'm yet to upgrade. The server itself is based on SleepyCat Berkley DB tables, which Oracle recently took over and look to have improved (http://www.oracle.com/database/berkeley-db/db/ind ex.html). So maybe future versions of the Perforce server will benefit too. I hope.

      --
      -- Mike
    15. Re:Perforce? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It don't scale. Once the DB exceeds the disk cache, it grinds :(

    16. Re:Perforce? by panaceaa · · Score: 1

      With good administrators, Perforce is comfortably scalable up to 500 to 1,000 developers. You just start running into lag problems once you get above that. Certain operations like branch integrates can lock up a depot for minutes, which doesn't sound bad until you realize that no developers on that depot can check-out files or make other Perforce client changes that whole time. Technically you'd run into the same problems with just 2 developers, but it gets really noticable when there's 3,000 developers and they can all do integrates and anyone's integration will lock the other 3,000 users. Microsoft's definitely running into this problem, plus they're running into sandbox issues. You can probably think of other companies with the same problem.

      --
      my blog
    17. Re:Perforce? by slamb · · Score: 2, Informative
      The write up of what I do is here: http://www.mcternan.co.uk/PerforceBackup/

      Interesting! I'll have to look it over more later.

      For comparison, I've put the latest (not yet deployed) version of our offline checkpoint process here. (It's a NetVault backup script; pre locks and does the checkpoint, post touches a file signalling success to our monitoring and releases the lock). It's a procedure outlined by Perforce, though they didn't mention error handling...

    18. Re:Perforce? by SageMusings · · Score: 1

      Why does MS not use the tools they sell to the rest of the world? For example, my organization does not use perforce but TFS for version control. Is TFS inadequate for large-scale development?

      I do not have much experience with lots of different versioning tools. I have only used TFS, CVS, and SourceGear.

      --
      -- Posted from my parent's basement
    19. Re:Perforce? by mattcoug · · Score: 4, Informative

      FYI - Guido built this system to work within the existing Google infrastructure, he didn't choose Perforce for the project. Guido also wants to eventually refactor it to work with many SCM including Subversion, CVS, etc. BTW, Perforce is used at many very-large-software-companies, so while it is not perfect, it is still very useful.

    20. Re:Perforce? by panaceaa · · Score: 2, Informative

      Microsoft dogfoods most everything, including Exchange Server (for @microsoft.com and @hotmail.com), SQL Server (for *.live.com), and internal Office betas (with pushes out to everyone, including admins). But for source control, their own products just don't scale up to 60,000 employees. I've heard there's dogfood initiatives for VSS, but developers in Windows Client and Office vehemently oppose them. I'm not sure if VSS is used in other areas of the company, like perhaps the Live.com groups and Xbox/Zune. And I'm not sure if there's efforts to expand VSS's capabilities to support Microsoft's own requirements, since there's very few companies that need that kind of scalability and most are Microsoft competitors.

      --
      my blog
    21. Re:Perforce? by yacc143 · · Score: 1

      merge tracking is already "implemented". Use svk, which does quite a nice job.

      Actually merge tracking is useful enough that it makes sense to use svk in completly online settings.

      yacc

    22. Re:Perforce? by WuphonsReach · · Score: 1

      I use both Subversion and Perforce. There's one major feature still lacking from Subversion: merge tracking. There's work underway [tigris.org] to design, implement, and document this feature, but it's not done yet. This is a huge deal for anyone with lots of branches.

      Aye, the SVN team is definitely not sitting on their laurels (yet) after finally hitting the 1.0 release a while back. They made significant improvements in 1.4 and have more up their sleeves for the upcoming 1.5 release. With even more things planned for down the road.

      (We made the switch to SVN over the summer, but we're just a tiny little shop with average needs.)

      --
      Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
    23. Re:Perforce? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, you can keep checkpoint downtime down to .. oh.. a few seconds, by using some simple techniques. "Offline checkpointing" is what it's called. In fact, you don't technically have to suffer any downtime for administrative tasks.

    24. Re:Perforce? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's just as free as CVS/SVN for two users. They offer a completely free version that never expires: http://www.perforce.com/perforce/evaldemo.html

    25. Re:Perforce? by fingon · · Score: 1

      CVS is shit. I mean this respectfully, of course, but it doesn't even have atomic commits or changesets, which are bare minimums for modern VC. SVN isn't much better, it is still too much CVS-derived for it's own good.

      --
      -- pending
    26. Re:Perforce? by spongman · · Score: 1

      VSS was used internally at microsoft by some groups for a while, but it's been replaced by their version of Perforce, which is in turn slowly being replaced by microsoft's own TFS which scales quite well to large projects/teams. check out dogfood stats here

    27. Re:Perforce? by chez69 · · Score: 1

      at least it's not source unsafe, harvest, or PVCS.

      clearcase 4 ever!

      --
      PHP is the solution of choice for relaying mysql errors to web users.
    28. Re:Perforce? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sure it can be done, but Perforce leave you to implement this yourself, and it's not something you want to get wrong.

    29. Re:Perforce? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So what you are saying is that it stops scaling at about 500 to 1000 developers.

    30. Re:Perforce? by doom · · Score: 1
      Schapsmann wrote:
      Why would linux kernel maintainers have used a proprietary SCMS all these years, if it wasn't simply the best suited tool for that purpose? (bitkeeper)

      Hypothetically, because the developer was a friend of Torvald's, and he talked him into it.

    31. Re:Perforce? by Doctor+Memory · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure how you decided Perforce is a "barely mid-level player" in the SCM market Why, by using only the finest in high-tech market player profiling, to whit: I Googled for "<scm system> configuration management" and noted how many hits each got. My list worked out to:

      2.8M — Clear Case
      2.8M — CVS
      2.4M — Visual Source Safe
      1.8M — Subversion
      1.1M — CCC/Harvest (now CA AllFusion Harvest)
      900K — RCS
      665K — Perforce
      536K — PVCS
      378K — Aegis
      376K — Monotone
      186K — BitKeeper
      154K — StarTeam
      101K — AllChange
      68K — GNU Arch
      29K — Continuus
      16K — MKS Source Integrity

      If we assume that # of hits == market share[1], then Perforce has 4.65% of the market. I realize this isn't the case, but I thought the results would be at least roughly indicative of relative ranking. This may be a Really Bad Idea (SM), and I'd happily fall on my sword if anyone could post some real figures (or even some from Gartner). I found some during my searches, but they were all several years old, so I didn't really consider them.

      I'm sure these results are well worth the price you paid for them. Now if I could only get reimbursed for the fifteen minutes or so it took me to compile them...
      ---
      [1] I could probably get a patent on this idea, it's so good...
      --
      Just junk food for thought...
  6. Perforce? by Doctor+Memory · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Good idea, building on a closed-source SCMS that's (barely!) a mid-level player in the market. I can understand not wanting ClearCase, but what's wrong with CVS or Subversion? Hell, even Monotone or GNU Arch...

    Oh well, could be worse: they could have gone with StarTeam, PVCS or MKS Source Integrity...

    --
    Just junk food for thought...
  7. Subversion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Am I missing something here? Why don't the use Subversion?

  8. Codestriker is the same thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Codestriker does the same thing. Except it is in perl + GPL, on source forge.

  9. Joel Spolsky mentions Perforce by soxos · · Score: 1, Interesting
    Joel Spolsky (of JoelOnSoftware fame) talked yesterday about how Microsoft handles their enormous build system. Apparently it's built on a fork of Perforce that MS paid for some time ago. Could this be an early warning sign of Google becoming Micro-soft?

    Disclaimer: I've yet to work with Perforce, having not yet graduated from CVS, but at least I'm not using VSS.

    1. Re:Joel Spolsky mentions Perforce by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      1) There are thousands of companies that use Perforce. Does that mean they all want to be Microsoft?

      2) Of the thousands of companies that use Perforce, many of them started using Perforce before Microsoft. So wouldn't that make Microsoft the copycat of them?

      3) Perforce is a popular choice among companies that need a version control system that can handle very large code bases with high speed. Few version control systems can do this adequately. Perforce also has excellent branch management features. There is nothing wrong with using Perforce (although I have other preferences) presuming you can afford it.

    2. Re:Joel Spolsky mentions Perforce by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Apparently it's built on a fork of Perforce that MS paid for some time ago. Could this be an early warning sign of Google becoming Micro-soft?

      Oh my goodness! I use C++. Microsoft uses C++. I guess this means I am becoming Microsoft!

      What a stupid comparison.

    3. Re:Joel Spolsky mentions Perforce by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

      but it's -joel- who said it!!

      cmon guys, that guy knows almost as much as paul graham!

      and I'm sure RMS doesn't like perforce either, so it must be bad!

      And I think Theo De Raadt thinks perforce is insecure, to boot

      (a fan of all these folks.. but sheesh - grow a brain people)

    4. Re:Joel Spolsky mentions Perforce by mr_mophead · · Score: 2, Funny

      It took you until now to see an early warning sign?

  10. Hodie Natus Est Radici Frater by soxos · · Score: 2, Interesting

    And actually good documentation is written in Latin...

    Totally OT, but your comment reminded me of this. A great piece of history from the Multics group about an error code that never was meant to see the light of day, yet, through circumstances, did show up once during an upgrade.

  11. who cares by gravy.jones · · Score: 0

    I could care less if they managed their code using punch cards.

    --
    Where's the 0xBEEF
  12. Perforce?! gag, choke, cough, boggle! by Toby+The+Economist · · Score: -1, Redundant

    That hunk of complete crap!

    Jesus Christ on a stick.

    IME, when a company goes from being small, well run and efficient, to bloated, bureaucratic and hopelessly *hopelessly* stupid, the FIRST thing they do is switch to Lotus Notes and Perforce.

    It's like old people moving to Florida buying an RV.

  13. Perfarce fails in a cross-platform environment by rossta · · Score: 2, Informative

    You can't check out files with both Unix and Windows line-endings. See http://smithii.com/perforce_bugs for the ugly details.

  14. Blargh! Mondrian is already an open-source OLAP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Blargh! Mondrian is already an open-source OLAP engine! Seriously, a casual google search could tell you that. And it's not some sf.net abandonware, it's a mature and powerful OLAP Cube engine used by some big-name corps!

    Oh, and just to rant a bit more: Python WAS ALREADY THE NAME of the Lisp Compiler used in the CMUCL Common Lisp implementation and lately SBCL. And was relatively well known in computing science at the time Guido was naming python because it is a snazzy type inferencing lisp compiler!

    Guido's some sort of naming-dick. What'll he call his next python project? Glibc? Mesa? Gimp?

    1. Re:Blargh! Mondrian is already an open-source OLAP by panaceaa · · Score: 2, Funny

      I nominate Gimp. It's represented a crappy image editor with nonsensical UI for too long. It'd be awesome if it was something cool, like Web 2.0 Pong.

      --
      my blog
    2. Re:Blargh! Mondrian is already an open-source OLAP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny
      Guido's some sort of naming-dick. What'll he call his next python project? Glibc? Mesa? Gimp?

      Firebird!

    3. Re:Blargh! Mondrian is already an open-source OLAP by syphoon · · Score: 1

      Mondrian is also the name of an experimental functional language for the .NET platform written by Nigel Perry.
      It's also a Haskell dialect described in this 1997 paper.
      I really don't think it's anything worth getting worked up over. This is an inhouse program that was started as a side-project and is unlikely to be released (if at all) for quite some time, I think it's quite likely he just picked the name since it already had a Google-fied logo (they've used that before for their frontpage on (the artist) Mondrian's birthday).

    4. Re:Blargh! Mondrian is already an open-source OLAP by Butterwaffle+Biff · · Score: 1

      Ice Weasel

    5. Re:Blargh! Mondrian is already an open-source OLAP by doom · · Score: 1
      Can anyone explain why you would want to name a software project after the world's dullest modernist painter?

      And I'm not particularly down on Modern art myself... maybe I should name a project "Rauschenberg" (except that he's not dead yet).

  15. What's next? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Next they're going to release a web-based internet browser.

  16. Google by synx · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is why working at google is awesome. Internal code reviewer is big news.

    I use the tool in question, it's good.

    Also I've used perforce at a previous company. Generally most people who talk about SCMs and reference CVS as a potential replacement/alternative to P4 really do not know what they are talking about. P4 has it's problems, granted, but if you are looking to maintain a massive code base, there really are few choices. Atomic change lists, they are fantastic.

    1. Re:Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I'm somewhat surprised that Google is using P4 instead of BitKeeper, given that BitKeeper's author was employee #3 or #4 at Google.

    2. Re:Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Atomic change lists, they are fantastic.

      Implying that this is the feature that makes p4 essential. But it's not, it's 1) the branching and merge features, and 2) the grouping that changelists provide, that sets p4 apart.

      It does take some pretty advanced p4 admin to make it work well for a very large #users (size of code base doesn't really matter). But it's worth it to work within its constraints.

    3. Re:Google by SewersOfRivendell · · Score: 0

      It doesn't really matter, since:

      - the Perforce tools suck so badly. p4v is OK, but the command line tools are unacceptable.
      - the branching and merging features are completely overrated. They're hard to use. They don't give you anything Subversion doesn't already have.
      - they don't version the filesystem hierarchy.
      - don't get me started on what a mess viewspecs are. Everybody defines their own view of the repository! Fucking hell, what a nightmare!
      - the kludges you have to use in order to maintain a checkout of a particular label AND the top of tree (HEAD) are truly breathtaking.

      In fairness, Perforce network operations are blazingly fast, even over VPN; they've optimized their wire protocol quite well. Of course, they had to, because you can't really work offline in Perforce. There are ways to get around this, but you risk losing data. There is no automatic merge in the Perforce model. On the other hand, a Subversion branch operation is often more efficient because you don't need to have an actual duplicate copy of all the data.

    4. Re:Google by LauraW · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Agreed. I use this too, and it's great, especially if you feel like being a Code Nazi and making nit-picky comments about code that you're reviewing. You just double-click on the line you don't like and type in your comment. It's much easier to use than reading the code in a diff tool and then typing your comments into a separate email window.

      As far as perforce vs. CVS goes: I used CVS at my previous company and liked it. It was certainly a big improvement over CMVC when I was IBM and the SCCS wrapper that Sun used for Java when I worked on it. But CVS had its problems, mostly because it doesn't support atomic commits and checkouts. Perforce fixes that. Its command line takes a little bit of getting used to: "submit" instead of "commit" and so on. And the branching, while much more powerful than what you can do in CVS, takes a while to get your head around. But once you understand it, the power it gives you is wonderful. Perforce also has a few scalability problems, but they're mostly solvable.

      I also have to agree with the parent poster that it's great, but bizarre, working a company where the internal code review system is front-page news on Slashdot.

    5. Re:Google by bigsmoke · · Score: 1

      I've never used Perforce, but I've been a heavy SVN user for years and must say that the lack of merge tracking is truly a horrible miss. If there was some kind of bounty set for this, I might be very much willing to contribute from my meager pay.

      --
      Morality is usually taught by the immoral.
    6. Re:Google by bensch128 · · Score: 1

      - the Perforce tools suck so badly. p4v is OK, but the command line tools are unacceptable.
      They're not too terrible. Of course, I don't care because p4v is amazing anyway!

      - the branching and merging features are completely overrated. They're hard to use. They don't give you anything Subversion doesn't already have.
      They are a hell of a lot better and easier to use though. Well, at least over CVS. (don't know about SVN though)

      I personally like perforce a heck of a lot more then clearcase or VSS or CVS.
      The p4v tool is the major selling point for me. It's alot better designed then the competing SVN tools.

      Cheers
      Ben

    7. Re:Google by honor,+not+armor · · Score: 1

      Does this mean you can post screenshots?

  17. You FAIL 1t by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    suufering *BSD

  18. Re:Blargh! Mondrian is already ... and another! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Worse in this case, Mondrian is also the name for statistical and plotting program (available since at least 2002).

    In biology, when somebody accidentally names something as a homonym (i.e. the name already exists for some other species), then some other person who notices it often names it after the person who made the mistake. Having a species named after you is therefore either an honor, or it means you goofed.

    So, perhaps he should call it "Guido" :-)

  19. slashdotted: article text by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Google Mondrian: web-based code review and storage

            * Search/Google
            * Programming

    Google Mondrian logo

    Guido van Rossum unveiled his first Google project, Mondrian, tonight during a Python tech talk at the Google campus in Mountain View. Mondrian is a web-based code review system built on top of a Perforce and BigTable backend with a Python-powered front-end. Mondrian is a pretty impressive system and is currently in use across Google.
    Shared Development Environment

    Google uses a company-wide Perforce depot with almost no developer branches. Each developer has their own NFS workspace readable by anyone in the company, including automated processes. An administrative process takes snapshots of each developer workspace including local development environments accessed over SSH. Files within these snapshots can be compared to checked-in data, encrypted, and archived.
    Previous methods of review

    Previous to Mondrian code review was conducted largely over e-mail using Google command-line wrappers built on top of Perforce. A developer could initiate a code review from within the g4 mail tool, which would fire off an e-mail and begin a review thread. When the developer receives a response of "looks good to me," or lgtm for short, they could proceed to checkin. Changes could be compared using tkdiff.

    Design-level reviews are often conducted by e-mailing around Word documents or editing a team wiki. Recently some design reviews have moved onto an internal version of Google Docs.
    Web-based collaboration meets code review
    Mondrian code review

    The Mondrian tool creates a much better workflow by creating task-specific dashboards, in-line commenting, well-tracked statistics, and more. The application is built on top of Python open source libraries such as the Django framework, smtpd.py mail service, and the wsgiref web server software.

    Code reviews can be initiated and completed from within the Mondrian interface. A developer requests a review from another user or a group of users to kick off the process. Each invited reviewer can add comments directly underneath a line of code or reference the entire file. You can request and diff the file against previous versions as well. It's a pretty slick interface, lightly highlighting each line of code as you hover, and popping open a comment box in response to a double-click. Comments can be saved as a draft and shared at a later time.

    Putting the entire code review process online means you never have to worry about referencing the most recent version of a file or losing e-mails. Mondrian captures every outgoing e-mail related to the workflow, looks for key data such as revision numbers, and updates a to-do list accordingly.
    More on BigTable

    Mondrian uses BigTable as backend storage for user data. More specifically, it's used to store:

            * Change metadata such as a description or list of files
            * Comments entered through the web interface or via e-mail
            * Encrypted file snapshots taken from user workspaces
            * Per-user data such as active changes or last view dates

    Summary

    The Mondrian web code review system is pretty impressive. Guido estimates he has spent about 25% of his work time on the project since joining Google in December 2005. Mondrian served as Guido's introduction to Google technologies and processes with the help of a few other Googlers treating it as a side-project. The application is so deeply intertwined with Google technologies it's not likely to be available as open source until Subversion and a backend such as SQLite can be supported.

    Guido's full talk, including a demo of Mondrian, should be available on Google Video sometime in the future.

  20. Good for Django by Gumber · · Score: 1

    This is a nice design win for Django as a web framework. I wonder how much of the stack he ended up using and whether he used the ORM layer at all.

  21. Microsoft uses Perforce?! by mkcmkc · · Score: 4, Funny

    Microsoft is using Perforce for source code control? Why aren't they using their own product--Visual Source Safe? Does it suck or something?

    --
    "Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
    1. Re:Microsoft uses Perforce?! by DevStar · · Score: 1

      Actually much of Microsoft is moving to VS Team System. I believe all of Visual Studio and .NET is using it now.

    2. Re:Microsoft uses Perforce?! by zeroduck · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Simple answer: yes.

      We use it at work, and deal with corrupted databases frequently. There's been talk of moving to SVN for a while, but I doubt they'd make a full switchover. We have years worth of projects stored in VSS, and it's really not worth moving them over (fortunately closed projects, so getting back to them is only necessary if any issues arise with a customer).

    3. Re:Microsoft uses Perforce?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Long story short, VSS is one of the worst piece of source-control software ever. This is a quite beaten to death horse, so here are 3 articles on the subject: Visual SourceSafe Version Control: Unsafe at any Speed?, Visual SourceSafe: Microsoft's Source Destruction System and Source Control: Anything But SourceSafe.

    4. Re:Microsoft uses Perforce?! by lagerbottom · · Score: 1

      Do you have a link? Just curious, not being a dick.

      --
      "He was a wise man who invented beer." - Plato
    5. Re:Microsoft uses Perforce?! by DevStar · · Score: 1

      Legit question. Check out this link: http://blogs.msdn.com/bharry/archive/2006/11/21/no vember-devdiv-dogfood-statistics.aspx It actually gives in-depth states on the use of Team System in Visual Studio and .NET.

    6. Re:Microsoft uses Perforce?! by fkamogee · · Score: 1

      As they say, "It's funny because it's true!"

  22. Interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    For fanboys and lackeys. And people who feel important because they know somebody who knows somebody who thinks g is great or something, but can't write any code of their own :(

    The entire google team in other words!

  23. Crucible does this, but for CVS, SVN and Perforce by brendanh · · Score: 1

    Our product Crucible http://www.cenqua.com/crucible provides online web-based code review including inline commenting, workflow etc. Crucible is currently in Beta release and supports CVS, SVN and Perforce. Free licenses for Open Source projects are available.

    Cheers,
    -Brendan

  24. Code Collaborator by brandond · · Score: 1

    My company, Smart Bear Software, has developed a commercial tool for peer code review called Code Collaborator. We support a wide variety of SCM's, including CVS, Subversion, Perforce, Clear Case, and soon Team Foundation Server.

    Using our tool, we also performed the largest case study of peer code review ever published and have made it available as a free book. It includes data from 2500 reviews of 3.2 million lines of source code at Cisco Systems. To get your free copy, just sign up on our website.

    1. Re:Code Collaborator by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Where I work we use Perforce with Code Collaborator. I like CC but perforce is a major slow pain in the behind. At least how we have it setup. In my division there are about 5000 employees about half of which probably access perforce on a regular basis. It is slow. We have over 100,000 labels in our system and any operation involving labels takes forever.

  25. Valve uses Perforce! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Valve also uses Perforce.