Configuration management with logical structures

Abstract

When designing software, programmer usually think in terms of modules that are represented as functions and classes. But using existing configuration management systems, programmers have to deal with versions and configurations that are organized by files and directories. This is inconvenient and error-prone, since there is a gap between handling source code and managing configurations. We present a framework for programming environments that handles versions and configurations directly in terms of the functions and classes in source code. We show that with this framework, configuration management issues in software reuse and cooperative programming become easier. We also present a prototype environment that has been developed to verify our ideas.