Xref: utzoo comp.unix.questions:14255 comp.software-eng:1620 Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcvax!ukc!stl!pgh From: pgh@stl.stc.co.uk (Peter Hamer) Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,comp.software-eng Subject: Re: Source Code Control Message-ID: <1508@stl.stc.co.uk> Date: 13 Jun 89 10:23:35 GMT References: <132@tirnan.UUCP> <4750020@hpirs.HP.COM> <133@tirnan.UUCP> Sender: news@stl.stc.co.uk Reply-To: "Peter Hamer" Organization: STC Technology Limited, London Road, Harlow, Essex, UK Lines: 28 In article <133@tirnan.UUCP> john@tirnan.UUCP (John Richartz) writes: > > I've worked with several (mostly ad-hoc) variants of > development based on either SCCS or RCS and find that the structure > is generally not in place to provide a development model that > allows for realistic development of a Product and any variants and > descendents of it ... > > "Source Control" is only a part of the problem ... I know the problem well! A configuration management system called Shape has just been distributed on comp.sources.unix. You will probably find the papers included in the distribution well worth the effort of unpacking all 33 parts; they are very interesting. Shape is in some ways yet another SCCS/RCS combined with yet another Make. However, it is built on an 'Attribute FileSystem' which maintains a distinction between objects and their attributes. This enables Make requests of the form 'select the newest version of all components I am working on and the newest published version of all other components' to be used. Similarly, some of the problems of variants seem to be addressed; both when the variants are realised as separate sources, and when they are realised as a common source with different compiler-time flags. I would be interested in other peoples comments on the approach adopted by the Shape team, and any feedback from people using it [or trying to use it]. Please read the Shape papers and don't rely on the accuracy of my summary.