TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Configuration Management is a big part of the SW development industry.
There's much info, tools, time energy & money spent on it, organizations &
institutes devoted to it, entire levels of management expertise dedicated to
it,,, so it's central to big-time [as opposed to small shop] corporate SW
dev.
SW config. mgmt has to do with how SW gets developed in a complex SW_dev
environment, typically with a team or multiple teams of programmers who code
a large SW project in parts and integrate these parts into its final form --
a working software application. Version control, platform issues, SW
maintenance, and so on, all play a part in SW dev and in config mgmt.
If you've never worked in SW development, this job would be a major
challenge. Yes, this write-up is unclear, but it says they want someone who
understands, i.e. has experience with software development & config. mgmt.
[1.2] What is Configuration Management (CM)?
There are a number of different interpretations. For purposes of
this newsgroup, we are talking about tracking and control of software
development and its activities. That is, the mangement of software
development projects with respect to issues such as multiple developers
working on the same code at the same time, targetting multiple platforms,
supporting multiple versions, and controlling the status of code (for
example beta test versus real release). Even within that scope there are
different schools of thought:
* Traditional Configuration Management - checkin/checkout control of
sources (and sometimes binaries) and the ability to perform builds (or
compiles) of the entities. Other functions may be included as well.
* Process Management - control of the software development activities.
For example, it might check to ensure that a change request existed and had
been approved for fixing and that the associated design, documentation, and
review activities have been completed before allowing the code to be
"checked in" again.
While process management and control are necessary for a repeatable,
optimized development process, a solid configuration management foundation
for that process is essential.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Diana Barnum [SMTP:dbarnum -at- columbus -dot- rr -dot- com]
> Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2000 10:16 AM
> To: TECHWR-L
> Subject: Help with job description, please..
>
> A local company familiar with my writing background, asked if I'd be
> interested in this job:
>
> Automating the Software Configuration Management process for a major
> insurance provider. We need process and detail oriented people who
> understand the Software Development Cycle.
>
> Anyone familiar with this? Is it writing the process in a lay-person's
> manual?