Views for Evolution in Programming Environments.
Abstract
Programming environments have become a focal point for much of the work directed toward improving the practice of software engineering. Such environments must provide mechanisms for recording and organizing the complex set of persistent technical and management data associated with all part of the lifecycle of large software systems. This paper focuses on one important aspect of such persistent data: how to allow evolution when the existing information must be preserved without change to maintain history. First, the role of history in programming environments is discussed. Next, the additional demands of evolution are considered and shown to lead to a set of problems. View mechanisms are suggested as a solution to these problems. A simple example involving file system directory structure is presented to illustrate these problems. A simple view mechanism, called multidirectories, is introduced and shown to solve the illustrated problems.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 1987
- Accession Number
- ADA188923
Entities
People
- John R. Nestor
Organizations
- Carnegie Mellon University