Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!motcsd!hpda!hpcupt1!hpirs!runyan
From: runyan@hpirs.HP.COM (Mark Runyan)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Re: Source Code Control
Message-ID: <9630003@hpirs.HP.COM>
Date: 25 Jun 89 22:02:20 GMT
References: <133@tirnan.UUCP>
Organization: HP GSY/USO/UKL Cupertino, CA, USA
Lines: 20

>/ maslen@polya.Stanford.EDU (Thomas Maslen) / 12:02 am  Jun 21, 1989 /
>One of the interesting decisions made by the NSE folks was to
>recognize that exclusive locking is often too restrictive.  Their
>model lets you "check out" a revision (which gives you a consistent
>snapshot of the system) but can allow others to add revisions in the
>meantime.  When you finally go to check yours back in, if changes have
>been made in the interim, you go through a (largely automated)
>reconciliation/merge process.

If there are any technical papers available to the general public on how
this reconciliation/merge process is accomplished, I would be extremely
interested in reading them!  The "need" for exclusive locks exists because
of the difficulty of merging changes back in (at least, in my experience).
If NSE solves this problem to handle the merge automatically, I'd like
to know how its done.  (Of course, it may be a company secret for SUN,
in which case, I'll not know.  But if SUN wants to make it a paper at
the next USENIX Workshop on Software Management, I'll be the attentive
one in the front row... :-)

Mark Runyan