Serpent is a web-based launcher for Rational Publishing Engine and DOORS.
Rational Publishing Engine is a good tool with some drawbacks. The main one is that it has to be installed on a user’s machine in order for that user to generate a document with it! This is unacceptable to me as a DOORS administrator, so I created Serpent.
If a picture is worth 1000 words then a video is worth at least 1001 words. So, watch this video to get the idea.
Serpent was created to fill a need. As a DOORS administrator, I have a hard enough time educating my users about the tool and even troubleshooting it from time to time. I know that putting RPE on everyone’s machines would then change my job from Requirements Expert to RPE Troubleshooter. No way.
If a user has RPE on their machine, they can create an ad hoc document. But what if a user doesn’t have RPE on their machine? Why should they have to install a massive application (two massive applications, actually) in order to generate a pretty document from DOORS?
It is Serpent’s aim to change this. But given all the technology involved, I’m afraid I do not have the time to build Serpent all by myself.
This is where you come in. This is why Serpent is open source. If you know some Javascript, or want a reason to learn a little jQuery, then you can help out. It took me quite a while to get here on my own and it is my belief that we can tweak Serpent and fix its (many) limitations together, and it’ll be in every RPE customer’s toolbox.
Serpent is hosted on github. Serpent’s documentation is on its wiki.
Feel free to contact me (and fix the email address) with any and all questions.