Question

Of course our organization doesn’t have documentation any where.

I’m wondering if it’s possible to use clearcase in a git-like manner?

Meaning, is there a method to branch/fork a specific file? pull request? merge/commit? etc.?

Or is there an easy method for some type of desktop SVN that I can work into my clearcase workflow?

Answer 1

You will find the main differences between ClearCase and Git in “What are the basic clearcase concepts every developer should know?“.

The main difference which prevents you to use ClearCase like Git is the absence of private commit: if you checkin a file in the same branch (or UCM stream) than your colleague, he/she will have to take your new version immediately (for dynamic view) or at the next update (snapshot view).

Using ClearCase across sites can be done with ClearCase multi-site, with a cumbersome system of ownership which prevent any concurrent work.
Or you can use CCRC (ClearCase Remote Client)

In both cases, you still need to be connected to a ClearCase server, otherwise you won’t be able to checkin (which changes from Git, where you can commit locally).

I would advise at least to use ClearCase with UCM (a methodolgy shipped with ClearCase), which will force you to clearly define UCM components (equivalent in size of Git repos), and Streams (configurations of baselines from which you are working).
From there, you clearly see the worklow of merges you need to do.

See “ClearCase UCM – best practices using components” for more.
But again, this will be different from Git.

See also “Describe your workflow of using version control (VCS or DVCS)” to better understand the differences between CVCS and DVCS.