Here are a couple experiences I've had using multiple
centralized instances for development.
- One project used ATG as the app server on Solaris
using Apache as the web server. We were taking content
managed by Interwoven and stored in XML and delivering
it using Java code deployed on ATG Dynamo.
We initially setup each developer an
apache/interwoven/atg development environment on a
central Solaris server. This was a bit complex as it
involved setting up Samba mounts from Interwoven
server to each developer's machine and also setting up
NFS mounts between the interwoven server and each app
server instance. Only some of the development team
knew UNIX and it slowed them down when they had to do
work on the server.
Each time we wanted to change the environment our UNIX
admin group had to go and make changes to each of the
development environments. It just became too
complicated and we ended up installing ATG on each
developers box and cut some of the complexity out of
the configuration. It shifted a great deal of work off
the UNIX admins and it wasn't that hard for each
developer to maintain thier own atg instance.
- On another large J2EE project we attempted to set up
35 developers with their own instances of a J2EE app
server and a web server on Solaris. Our UNIX group
(one brave soul, actually) spent a huge number of
hours setting them up over 4 solaris boxes (turns out
that memory req's for the app server only allowed us
to put 10 instances per machine).
Well it was a massive effort. And each time we
discovered a configuration change the poor UNIX guy
(who may be in a mental ward by now) would've had to
make these changes to 35+ instances over 4 machines.
And, again, only half the developers knew UNIX.
We ended up coming up with standardized step-by-step
install instructions for installing the whole
environment on a desktop and put it up on everyone's
machine. It was only then that the project picked up
speed and began producing a decent rate of progress.
Now, I still believe that central development can be a
good thing - but I think that it has to be the right
project and the right team.
To Gene's point, we did actually set up one
centralized instance that some of the front-end
GUI/JSP developers shared. That worked out pretty
well.
I also had a situation where we set up a centralized
environment specifically for someone who wanted to
tellecommute. It worked great. Everyone else use their
desktops.
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