Smart Bear News

Jul 14, 2008
Review of Code Collaborator

Paul Tozour reviews Code Collaborator and makes the case for using it over other techniques (e.g. pair programming, formal inspections) in the realm of game development. Excerpt:

"The ostensible reason for this process was to get more engineers familiar with different parts of the codebase that they wouldn't have had any exposure to otherwise.

"What we found was far more surprising -- we uncovered an amazing number of bugs before they ever reached QA.

"Furthermore, the bugs were coming from everywhere, not just the junior engineers. All the engineers, including all of the most senior developers, had plenty of room for improvement."
[Read Review]

Jul 8, 2008
New Article published on Embedded.com: How to build checklists

Jason Cohen from Smart Bear is the guest editor this month over at embedded.com. This article describes how to build effective peer code review checklists for software projects.
[Read Article]

Jun 24, 2008
Talk: Peer Code Review Doesn't Have to Suck

Jason gives a 60-minute talk on how to do code reviews without the usual pain at San Diego SSQ.
[About SSQ]

May 24, 2008
New article: Painless code reviews by Robert Bogue, MVP

Robert Bogue, Microsoft MVP and well known writer and speaker, has written a great article on developer.com about general pointers for successful, painless code reviews.
[Read Article]

May 16, 2008
Smart Bear Tours Southern California

Smart Bear developers and founder Jason Cohen will be touring southern California with plans for the future release of Code Collaborator v5.0. Contact us if you'd like us to come by!

Mar 17, 2008
Smart Bear's Jason Cohen presenting at ESC Silicon Valley

Jason Cohen will be a track speaker at ESC Silicon Valley 2008 in San Jose on Wednesday April 16. The paper is "Peer Code Review Doesn't Have to Suck"
[View Event Details]

Mar 5, 2008
Jolt Award winner: Code Collaborator

Code Collaborator won the prestigious Jolt Award in the category of Collaboration Tools. The 18-year-old Jolt Award is the Oscar for software development tools.
[See all Jolt Award winners]

Feb 19, 2008
Smart Bear presenting at SD West San Jose 2008

Jason Cohen, founder of Smart Bear and writer of Best Kept Secrets of Peer Code Review, has been invited to talk about code review at SD West on March 5th from 3:30 to 5:00 in Room 206 at the Santa Clara Convention Center.
[New Features]

Jan 20, 2008
Code Collaborator v4.0 Final Release

After a 3-month beta period, Code Collaborator v4.0 is now generally available.
[New Features]

Dec 15, 2007
Jolt Award Finalist: Code Collaborator

For the second year in a row, Code Collaborator is a Jolt Award Finalist. The Jolt Awards are the software developer industry's Emmy's. Winners will be announced in March at SD West in San Jose.

Oct 8, 2007
Code Collaborator v4.0 Beta Released

Smart Bear today announced the public release of Code Collaborator v4.0 Beta and Code Reviewer v4.0 Beta. Both released represent the biggest upgrade in a year. The beta period is expected to be 6-8 weeks, although Smart Bear will take as much time as necessary to ensure that the code is stable before declaring a final release.
[New Features]

Oct 2, 2007
Article about checklists published in CM Crossroads

Smart Bear CEO Jason Cohen was published again in CM Crossroads, an on-line SCM journal. The article is about how to build code review checklists from the ground up, and guidelines for what should and should not be included.
[Read Article at CM Crossroads]

Sep 19, 2007
Smart Bear at SD Best Practices

Come visit us in Booth #1609 at SD Best Practices in Boston. Jason's talk at 1:45 is already fully booked, but you can still get the skinny at our booth.

Aug 12, 2007
SourceGear licenses DiffMerge to Smart Bear

SourceGear and Smart Bear Software have reached an agreement which will lead to the bundling of SourceGear DiffMerge with Smart Bear's products starting in September.
[Read Eric Sink's Announcement]

Aug 3, 2007
Smart Bear to deliver double-talk in Boston

Jason Cohen, CEO and founder of Smart Bear, will give a presentation on best practices for peer code review at both the Embedded Systems Conference and at SD Best Practices in Boston on September 19th and 20th.

Jul 13, 2007
Smart Bear / AccuRev Integration

Smart Bear announced plans for integration with the AccuRev SCM system from AccuRev Inc. Alpha-testing will begin in late August at selected sites.

"The AccuRev integration is exciting because their unique streams-based workflow makes peer code review a natural step in product development, rather than a step that needs to be shoe-horned in," said Jason Cohen, CEO of Smart Bear.

"Furthermore, the support from AccuRev technical support has been phenomenal, making it that much easier to plan and execute the integration."

Jun 19, 2007
Jason Cohen invited to speak at StarWest

Jason Cohen, CEO and founder of Smart Bear, has been selected to give a presentation on best practices for peer code review as a track session at StarWest in Anaheim on Oct 26 at 10:00.

May 21, 2007
Smart Bear hires new QA manager

We are pleased to announce that Paul Jimenez has joined Smart Bear as the new QA manager and general systems administrator. Paul will be responsible for creating a new fully-automated cross-platform integration test harness and suite. The system will be designed to run automatically with a nightly build, but also incrementally at developers' workstations for bug fixing and to make it easy to add new tests. Paul brings 12 years of experience in testing and system administration.

May 4, 2007
Jason Cohen interviewed for Dr. Dobbs

Dr. Dobbs today published a short interview with Jason Cohen, founder and CEO of Smart Bear Software. Topics included Smart Bear's famous Cisco case study, why tools are helpful with code review, and which metrics are meaningful.
[Read the Interview]

May 1, 2007
Code Collaborator v2.1 Final Released

Four weeks after the public beta release, Code Collaborator v2.1 has been released as "Final." This release adds: keyboard shortcuts for the side-by-side view, the ability to "externalize" a defect when it should be fixed after the review is complete, end-to-end SSL, support for Oracle back-ends, and a handful of creature-features. The client and server upgrades are free for all Code Collaborator customers with current support contracts.
[Read the Press Release]

Apr 15, 2007
NullSafe alpha-testing starting now

NullSafe is a NullPointerException detector for Java. The latest addition to the Smart Bear product line, NullSafe scans Java bytecode to detect possible NPE's. It's patent-pending analysis engine is able to detect more errors with fewer false-positives than any other tool, even if the source code is not available. The public alpha-test program for NullSafe is beginning now.
[Visit the NullSafe home page]

Apr 2, 2007
Code Collaborator v2.1 Public Beta Released

Three months after the release of Code Collaborator v2.0, Smart Bear announced v2.1 beta. This release adds: keyboard shortcuts for the side-by-side view, the ability to "externalize" a defect when it should be fixed after the review is complete, end-to-end SSL, support for Oracle back-ends, and a handful of creature-features. The client and server upgrades are free for all Code Collaborator customers with current support contracts.
[Visit the Code Collaborator home page]

Mar 21, 2007
Tech talk well received at SD West

Smart Bear's tech talk at SD West -- 11 Best Practices for Peer Code Review -- was standing-room only, proving once again that although "code review" might not be sexy, it's interesting and important.
[Read the white paper]

Mar 1, 2007
Smart Bear announces Oracle support for Code Collaborator v2.1

Smart Bear has officially announced support for Oracle 10gR2, adding to the existing list of database support including Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, and Hypersonic. This update is currently in beta-test and will be delivered to the general public in late March along with the v2.1 release of Code Collaborator. Contact Smart Bear if you would like to participate in the beta.

Jan 20, 2007
Code Collaborator v2.0 is Jolt Award Finalist

Smart Bear Software's Code Collaborator 2.0 software for peer code review has been recognized by the 17th Annual Dr. Dobb's Jolt Product Excellence Awards as a finalist in the Collaboration Tools category. Jolt award winners will be announced at the SD West Conference and Expo in Santa Clara, CA on March 21, 2007.

The Jolt Product Excellence Awards are run by CMP Technology's Dr. Dobb's. For the past 16 years, the Jolt awards have been presented annually to showcase products that have "jolted" the industry with their significance and made the task of creating software faster, easier, and more efficient. Jolt Cola, the fabled soft drink quaffed by software developers for sustenance during project development marathons, sponsors the awards presentation.
[Read Full Press Release]

Jan 7, 2007
Code Collaborator v2.0 Feature List revealed in detail

Smart Bear announced the release of Code Collaborator v2.0. This significant update includes 8 major new features and dozens of smaller creature-fixes and bug fixes. New features with screenshots and links to the manual are available on the Smart Bear website at http://codecollab.com.
[Read About the New Features]

Dec 30, 2006
Code Collaborator v2.0 Released

Smart Bear announces Code Collaborator v2.0. The press release details some new features and includes some immediate feedback from some customers.
[Read Full Press Release]

Dec 5, 2006
New Article: Lightweight Review Episode 5 of 8: Team-Building for the Cold, Dark, and Alone

See how peer code review pulls developers out of isolation and causes them to work as a team.

This is an article from the column that Smart Bear founder and CEO Jason Cohen has been invited to write for CM Crossroads, an on-line SCM and ALM journal and destination.
[Read Full Article]

Nov 27, 2006
Smart Bear invited to do a "Tech Talk" at SD West 2007

Smart Bear Inc will be attending SD West 2007. We will give a "Tech Talk" seminar on best practices of peer code review and we'll have a vendor booth showing off Code Collaborator and other products.

Nov 2, 2006
New Article: Lightweight Review Episode 4 of 8: The Largest Case Study, Ever

Read about the largest case study of peer code review ever published: 2500 reviews, 50 developers, 10 months at Cisco System® on real-world software.

This is an article from the column that Smart Bear founder and CEO Jason Cohen has been invited to write for CM Crossroads, an on-line SCM and ALM journal and destination.
[Read Full Article]

Oct 4, 2006
New Article: Lightweight Review Episode 3 of 8: Pros and Cons of Four Types of Review

The five most common types of code review are: Over-the-shoulder, email pass-around, formal inspection, tools-assisted, and pair-programming. (Yes, pair-programming is a type of review!) Each of these methods have positive and negative effects. We've already shot down Formal Inspections; let's explore the rest in a short article.

This is an article from the column that Smart Bear founder and CEO Jason Cohen has been invited to write for CM Crossroads, an on-line SCM and ALM journal and destination.
[Read Full Article]

Sep 19, 2006
Code Collaborator is "Tool Spotlight" on CM Crossroads

CM Crossroads selected Code Collaborator for its September Tool Spotlight review.
[Read Article]

Sep 17, 2006
Book Review: Jack Ganssle reviews Best Kept Secrets of Peer Code Review

Jack Ganssle (http://www.ganssle.com), the well-known embedded software process consultant and columnist for Embedded Systems Design magazine and embedded.com, has written a book review for Best Kept Secrets of Peer Code Review.
[Read The Review]

Sep 1, 2006
New Article: Lightweight Review Episode 2 of 8: Why Code Inspections Fail

You probably hate code reviews if you have experienced the dreaded "code inspection." Find out why formal code review can't work even in theory and what we should do about it.

This is an article from the column that Smart Bear founder and CEO Jason Cohen has been invited to write for CM Crossroads, an on-line SCM and ALM journal and destination.
[Read Full Article]

Aug 23, 2006
New Presentation: Lightweight Code Review, presented at IEEE Austin

Presentation including why code reviews save money, the reasons why people are not performing formal inspections, a new technique for lightweight code review, results from our May 2006 Case Study of lightweight review at Cisco Systems, and a discussion of social issues of peer review.
[View Presentation]

Aug 1, 2006
New Article: Lightweight Review Episode 1 of 8: The Case for Peer Review

Why should anyone perform peer code review? Where is the hard data? Read about the $1 billion bug and why no one talks about peer code review.

This is an article from the column that Smart Bear founder and CEO Jason Cohen has been invited to write for CM Crossroads, an on-line SCM and ALM journal and destination.
[Read Full Article]

Jul 21, 2006
Smart Bear to present at IEEE CS Austin on August 23rd

Smart Bear will be presenting results from their May 2006 case study of lightweight peer code review at Cisco Systems. Presentation topics include background of code review, related experiments, results of our case study, analysis of metrics, and informal conclusions about social interactions in peer code review.

Jul 2, 2006
Jason Cohen selected as guest columnist for CM Crossroads

Smart Bear founder and CEO Jason Cohen has been invited to write a column for CM Crossroads, an on-line SCM and ALM journal and destination. The 8-part series will run one episode per week through March 2007.
Check back with the Smart Bear News page for updates, or subscribe to our RSS feed to get notified automatically.

Jun 16, 2006
Smart Bear publishes book on Agile Peer Code Review

Smart Bear has just completed the largest case study ever done on peer code review. The results of that study and nine other chapters on topics in agile peer code review have been published in a book that Smart Bear is currently giving away free (with free shipping) on their website at http://codereviewbook.com.
[Order Free Copy]

Mar 2, 2006
Smart Bear will attend the Better Software Conference & Expo

Smart Bear will exhibit and deliver a talk on effective peer code reviews at the Better Software Conference & Expo in Las Vegas, June 26-29.

Feb 3, 2006
Code Collaborator is predicted to influence the SCM market in 2006

Mario Moreira makes his predictions about configuration management in 2006, and peer code review with Code Collaborator is a factor.
[Read Full Article]

Jan 17, 2006
CM Crossroads Tool Spotlight: Code Collaborator

CM Crossroads, the world's largest online community and resource center for configuration
management, made Code Collaborator the "Tool Spotlight" for January 2006.
[Read On]

Jan 15, 2006
SD Times reviews Code Collaborator

SD Times, a semi-monthly software industry news magazine, reviews Code Collaborator as the premier peer code review software package.
[Read Full Article]

Nov 12, 2005
Smart Bear releases Code Collaborator v1.0

Code Collaborator enables peer review of source code changes while automating audit trails, enforcing workflow, and generating reports.
[Read Full Press Release]

Oct 1, 2005
Perforce and Smart Bear integrate CodePickle with Perforce SCM

Tight integration between the two technologies lets existing Perforce users multi-task easily.
[Read Full Press Release]

Aug 30, 2005
Smart Bear Signs Siemens, Cognos, and Northrop Grumman

Smart Bear added three new customers accounting for over 500 seats of Code Reviewer, Code Historian, and Code Pickle.
[Read Full Press Release]

Jul 29, 2005
New Version of Code Reviewer Released

Smart Bear has released Code Reviewer v3.1. This release combines multiple new features including new workflow options and Code Pickle integration.
[Read Full Press Release]

Jul 14, 2005
Smart Bear Provides Peer Code Review to Kofax

Kofax, the top developer of information capture software, has deployed Smart Bear's Code Reviewer to help developers automate and facilitate the peer code review process. Code Reviewer will streamline the company's code review process, providing developers with a fast an efficient tool to review code across multiple development platforms and teams.
[Read Full Press Release]

Jun 7, 2005
Smart Bear Introduces Micro-Branching Tool

CodePickle lets developers save and restore local source code changes, thereby letting developers "context-switch" between development tasks.
[Read Full Press Release]

Apr 4, 2005
Record-Breaking Sales in Q105

Smart Bear today reported a record quarter both in sales and margins for the three months ended March 30, 2005. Continued investment in code review software has led to an increase in sales by 114%, and a 23% increase in margins, compared to the same period in 2004.
[Read Full Press Release]

Feb 4, 2005
Code Reviewer v3.0 Released

After over three months of beta testing, Code Reviewer v3.0 is now officially released.

New features include support for Rational ClearCase and SourceGear Vault v3.0, a web service repository server, ability to review old changes, and multiple simultaneous review repositories.
[Read Full Press Release]

Dec 7, 2004
In The News: Code Metrics in Delphi Magazine

Code Metrics was reviewed by Richard Stevens, contributing author for the Delphi Magazine. In the article, he explains how "you can analyse your development activity at the drop of a hat."
[Magazine Site]