New Ruby SBTM scripts on my web site

Hi there, for anyone who is interested, I have updated the sbtm-ruby-tools zip file on my web site at: http://www.staqs.com/sbtm/

The current version says it's 1.2, but it's a bit of a mix. I made some updates to some of the scripts last Fall but didn't get around to pushing them onto my site. Just yesterday I ran into an annoying bug when I ran the scripts on a laptop with a newer version of Ruby. It was a one-line change to fix, but this change is worth posting because the bug may cause the 2 most important scripts to *not* run on some systems.

The reason I'm posting this on my blog is to solicit feedback on these scripts. It literally took me 4 hours to create this archive tonight. The reason it took me so long was because the gap between these v1.x files and the v2.x (with the 2.x folder structure that I use on a daily basis) is getting quite large.

You see, last year I completely changed the SBTM 'Sessions' folder structure to help us manage multiple projects simultaneously. To do that, I created new BATCH files and modified ruby scripts to help us work with the different project folders. It's pretty sweet actually. I'm currently managing 3-5 project simultaneously with the SBTM 2.0 framework and it's only a few clicks to switch between any project.

Is this new framework worth sharing? I don't think so. I'm bothered by all the text files and batch scripts (it's so 20th century)... although I have come to really like all the ruby scripts that I have for all my test management needs. From one perspective, it's like a file-based database. On the other hand, it's really a bunch of disjoint text files and command-line scripts (even when you do integrate them with the Windows Explorer).

So, new stuff aside, the help I'm looking for is from someone who is actually using the v1.x SBTM Ruby scripts. Since the gap is so large between my free ones and the ones I use on a daily basis, I'd really like to get some feedback from someone on a completely different system to let me know that the scripts work as advertised.

They should work. They're pretty simple. I'd just like to confirm that.

Any volunteers?

2 comments:

  1. Paul,

    I have downloaded this new Ruby based SBTM tool today. Thanks for sharing that. I will be exploring it in coming days.

    However i am facing one problem that we are based in UK and would like ET reporting/charting in UK Date format .( I think Session reports are fine in US date format)

    And we are using Excel 2007 and looks like ET.xls does not work in compatabiliy mode

    have you came across this problem or is it only me being nuts.

    Please advice
    Amar

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  2. Hello Amar,

    Thank you for your note. I am thrilled to know that someone has taken a look at these scripts beyond my immediate team! =)

    Unfortunately, I am very familiar with the problem that you describe with the UK localisation issue.

    Here in Canada we have an EN-CA locale (which is very similar to the EN-UK locale) that doesn't appear to be used very much because our very large neighbour to the south uses different settings (EN-US). So most of the systems that I've seen people use here also default to the EN-US locale.

    The macros in the ET.xls spreadsheet appear to have been hard-coded with a specific US date format ... which die when I tried it on my system with the EN-CA settings. Unfortunately, I'm not an Excel macro guru so I never tried to rewrite the spreadsheet. Applying Occam's Razor, I changed the locale my system back on to EN-US to make the spreadsheet work.

    So, you're not nuts and it's not just you. =(

    In all the supporting Ruby scripts that I've developed over the years to help me manage SBTM, *that* spreadsheet is the one thing that I haven't rewritten. I've even completely re-done the folder structure to allow for multiple concurrent projects - each with its own ET.xls. But I haven't posted that change since it's more than just a simple 'drop in' like the 'tools-ruby' folder.

    Let me know if you have any success in making the spreadsheet work. It will be a helpful change until a better solution comes along.

    Cheers! Paul.

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