Purchase additional IPs for Developer edition

[Comcar Tech]

We're only a small company, we've got 2 developers so the CF Developer edition is perfect for us to work on together locally, and then we've got the standard edition on the live site.

We're looking to get another developer in, which is going to obviously cause problems working on a common local server, and we also have a couple of old pcs that we use for testing locally.

Paying 1k for another local copy seems a bit steep to just view the local dev site by one more computer, so I could install local dev copies on each machine and then have a single central demo pc for us to all commit our work to, so we can test before upload.

Does anyone else have a similar problem? If so how do you get around it?

Would anyone else like the idea of being able to purchase an additional IP count for the devloper licence?

Is it something Adobe could consider?

Admittedly once the development team was big enough a full version is justifiable, but not for just 1 more dev.

[Reed_Powell-ttnmOb]

What version of CF do you have for Standard Edition?  If CF9, then you are all set, because it allows you to setup a fully licensed development system install at no extra cost.  IF CF8, then a possibility would be to setup a second PC with developer edition, and on the existing system share out the /inetpub/wwwroot folder so that both PCs would see all of the same CF sources.  That is also more flexible because you can have independent testing going on at the same time without getting in each other's way when you need to do things like a CF restart.

-reed

[Comcar Tech]

I had no idea I could do this. We've got CF9 Standard on our live server, and then a local box in the office running CF9 Developer edition.

So can I just put the licence for our live box into the dev box? That wont suddenly deactivate the live site or anything like that will it?

[Reed_Powell-ttnmOb]

Correct.  Each standard or enterprise license for CF9 allows you to install it on an additional development/testing box, and also on a single "cloud" box. 

There's a big discussion this on this forum somewhere, from the time when CF9 was announced.  Details are also in the CF9 license document.

[12Robots]

Yes., as of ColdFusion 9 the licensing has changed to allow you to create dev, testing, and stage machines for your production environment using a single key from your production license.

3.1.3 If Licensee purchases one or more Production Software licenses, then Adobe also grants Licensee the
right to install and use the Software as Development Software for internal development, testing and staging.

http://www.adobe.com/products/eulas/pdfs/adobe_coldFusion_combined_20090811_0930.pdf

[Adam Cameron.]

My 2p? I recommend not developing on a shared dev server if poss.  There's generally no reason that one needs to develop like that, I think.  There's not been a situation for me in the last 10 years with various sizes of clients / sites that I've needed to develop on a server.

--

Adam

[Comcar Tech]

We're moving towards having our own versions of the site and working independently, however this is "how it's always been done", and also we like the idea of having an exact copy of the site that whole team can thrash for testing.

I suppose that could always be a live copy fo the site, but that's something for the future.

[Adam Cameron.]

and also we like the idea of having an exact copy of the site that whole team can thrash for testing.

That makes it sound scarily like you're not using source control..?

--

Adam

[Comcar Tech]

We're using Git, but we still want a test site before pushing anything live.

I don't understand your point Adam, do you not have a testing/development area, do you commit changes directly to live sites?

Also I think this discussion is getting a little off topic.

[BKBK]

I have just checked: Eclipse does also support Git. The main point is that you're using version control, that's good. Create separate DTAP code environments and make strict agreements on procedures.

[Adam Cameron.]

We're using Git, but we still want a test site before pushing anything live.

I don't understand your point Adam, do you not have a testing/development area, do you commit changes directly to live sites?

Also I think this discussion is getting a little off topic.

Heh.  Mate: I don't even have access to our live environment, let alone have permissions to deploy anything.  I don't even generally have deploy permissions to our test boxes.  I've got perms to my own machine, and that's it.

No, I only asked because you seemed to suggest that the way to have everyone working on an identical version of the site was to all be working on the same copy of it.  Which suggested you don't have source control.  Because - given you do have source control - it's pretty easy to make sure everyone's running the same commit level / branch / tag whatever locally.

That said, testing on developer machines ain't a great idea I think.  Still: it all depends on resourcing.

As off-topic as this might be, if someone says something that suggests they've not running source control, I think it's everyone else's burden to address the alarms bells that start going off.

That said: it's not really off-topic because you were asking how to deal with CF development licence restrictions, and how you work with your code - incl. source controlling it - is very relevant to the discussion.

--

Adam

[Dan_Bracuk]

Regarding:

No, I only asked because you seemed to suggest that the way to have everyone working on an identical version of the site was to all be working on the same copy of it.  Which suggested you don't have source control.  Because - given you do have source control - it's pretty easy to make sure everyone's running the same commit level / branch / tag whatever locally.

What about datasources?

[Adam Cameron.]

What about datasources?

What about them?  You really do take brevity to whole new heights (or perhaps plumb whole new depths), sometimes, Dan.

Here's what I am guessing you are asking: "where are the databases for your databases located in your dev set-up?"

The answer is "depends".  At the outfit I'm with @ the moment, we have various DB servers / instances, most of which I have no access to.  My local CF installs can connect to our DEV DB for proc-calling only, and most of the DSNs only have read access.  There is too much data to store locally, and as some of it is sensitive, they want it centralised anyhow.  I do have SQL Server Studio access to the DEV DB, and can run SELECT operations on that, as well as running procs.  I seldom need to do this though as we have a DB team to do all the DB stuff for us.  By the time I need some data, there's generally a proc there to fetch it for me.

I'm concurrently doing a small amount of freelance stuff, and the data for that is stored locally.  We're still pre-release on that, so there's only test data anyhow.

Previously, depending on the DB platform and the amount of data, I've had a mix of installed locally or accessing a shared server.  or bits of both.

Having data locally is not as significant as having the code locally.

--

Adam

[BKBK]

Adam Cameron. wrote:

What about datasources?

What about them?  You really do take brevity to whole new heights (or perhaps plumb whole new depths), sometimes, Dan.

Simply hilarious how two stars can produce new gravity!

[Dan_Bracuk]

Regarding:

Here's what I am guessing you are asking: "where are the databases for your databases located in your dev set-up?"

Actually, I was referring to the Datasources set up in ColdFusion on the Admin page.

Where I work, we use a dev server.  Datasources are added once and then are immediately available to all developers.  There are also occasions where we might edit a datasource to point somewhere else.  Once again, the change only has to be made once and they effect everyone, which is what we want.

How do you handle this sort of thing when developers use local instances of ColdFusion?

The misinterpretation was my fault.  It was my job to be clear, and apparently I wasn't.

[Adam Cameron.]

Regarding:

Here's what I am guessing you are asking: "where are the databases for your databases located in your dev set-up?"

Actually, I was referring to the Datasources set up in ColdFusion on the Admin page.

Where I work, we use a dev server.  Datasources are added once and then are immediately available to all developers.  There are also occasions where we might edit a datasource to point somewhere else.  Once again, the change only has to be made once and they effect everyone, which is what we want.

Ah right, I'm with ya.

The CF Admin dudes manage that stuff.  If there's any changes to our DSNs, they first retest the app(s) with the changes, then circulate a script for us to update our settings.

What they could also do here is to circulate a .CAR file with just the updates they need to make, and we could deploy that.  I actually wonder why we don't do that..?  Hmmm... I shall ask.

Either way, it's something that we seldom need to do, and whilst the delivery mechanism isn't automated, the actual update process is.

--

Adam

[BKBK]

PeteComcar wrote:

We're only a small company, we've got 2 developers so the CF Developer edition is perfect for us to work on together locally, and then we've got the standard edition on the live site.

We're looking to get another developer in, which is going to obviously cause problems working on a common local server, and we also have a couple of old pcs that we use for testing locally.

Paying 1k for another local copy seems a bit steep to just view the local dev site by one more computer, so I could install local dev copies on each machine and then have a single central demo pc for us to all commit our work to, so we can test before upload.

Does anyone else have a similar problem? If so how do you get around it?

Would anyone else like the idea of being able to purchase an additional IP count for the devloper licence?

Is it something Adobe could consider?

Admittedly once the development team was big enough a full version is justifiable, but not for just 1 more dev.

I don't see what the problem is. Each of the 3 developers can install his own Developer Edition. Availability is then increased to 6 IP addresses.

You have correctly identified what I consider to be the main challenge: the use of version control (CVS or SVN) to commit work.

You will get the full benefit of version control when you:

1) divide your code environment into subsections Development => Test => Acceptance => Production;

2) make strict agreements which code goes where, when and how to commit code, when to move code from one environment to the next, how and by whom?

I am assuming that you're using Eclipse as your IDE (Integrated Development Environment). Both CVS and SVN work well with Eclipse.

[Comcar Tech]

Ok, thanks everyone to your posts.

We are using Git, and I'm aware not to it's best potential. I am moving to words each developer running their own copy, and yes I understand that Git can help ensure they always match up.

Appriciate your concerns, and your help.

For the time being however, we've got, and will keep for some time, a local copy of the site, that I could do with accessing from a couple more pcs.

So if anyone can elaborate on Reed's post about setting up a "fully licensed development system install" that'd be great.

Is it as simple as adding the licence key to the local server?

[12Robots]

Yes

[Comcar Tech]

Thanks. I'll leave you guys to it.

Appriciate all the comments.