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Software Configuration Management a Road Map

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Software Configuration Management a Road Map Software Configuration Management A Road Map Jacky Estublier DassaultSyst•mes / LSR, Grenoble University, Actimart, AllŽe de Roumanie 38610 Gieres France [email protected] location. This is often referred as workspace control. ABSTRACT Compilation and derived object control is a major issue. This paper, in the first chapter summarizes the state of the Process control and support. Later (end 80s), it became art in SCM, showing the evolution along the last 25 years. clear that a, if not the, major issue is related to people. Chapter 2 shows the current issues and current research Traditionally, change control is an integral part of an SCM work under way in the area. In chapter 3, the challenges product; currently the tendency is to extend process support SCM has to take up, as well as SCM future research are capability beyond these aspects. discussed. 1.1 Short History Keywords In the 80s, the first systems were built in house and Software configuration management, Version control, focussed closely on file control. Most of them were built as process support, concurrent engineering, federation, a set of Unix scripts over RCS (a simple version control interoperability, architecture. tool) and Make (for derived object control). From this period we can mention DSEE [29], the only 1 WHAT IS SCM? serious commercial product, which introduced the system Current definition would say that SCM is the control of the model concept, an Architecture Description Language evolution of complex systems. More pragmatically, it is the (ADL) ancestor; NSE [34] which introduced workspace discipline that enable us to keep evolving software products and cooperative work control; Adele which introduced a under control, and thus contributes to satisfying quality and specialized product model with automatic configuration delay constraints. building [15], and Aides de Camp (now TRUE software) which introduced the change set (see later). SCM emerged as a discipline soon after the so called ÇÊsoftware crisisÊÈ was identified, i.e. when it was The first real SCM products appeared in the early 90s. understood that programming does not cover everything in These systems are much better. They often use a relational Software Engineering (SE), and that other issues were database but still rely on file control, they provide hampering SE development, like architecture, building, workspace support, but no or built-in process support. This evolution and so on. generation included Clear Case [30] (DSEE successor) which introduced the virtual file system and Continuus SCM emerged, during the late 70s and early 80s, as an [5][12] which introduced, with Adele, explicit process attempt to address some of these issues; this is why there is support [20]. Continuus and Clear Case are currently the no clear boundary to SCM topic coverage. In the early 80s market leaders. SCM focussed in programming in the large (versioning, rebuilding, composition), in the 90s in programming in the In the second half of the 90s, process support was added many (process support, concurrent engineering), late 90s in and most products matured. This period saw the programming in the wide (web remote engineering). consecration of SCM, as a mature, reliable and essential Currently, a typical SCM system tries to provide services in technology for successful software development; the SCM the following areas: market was over $1 billion sales in 1998. Many observers consider SCM as one of the very few Software Engineering Managing a repository of components. There is a need successes. for storing the different components of a software product and all their versions safely. This topic includes version 1.2 Component repository management, product modeling and complex object management. Most SCM products are based on a tiny core of concepts Help engineers in their usual activities. SE involves and mechanisms. Here is a short summary of these applying tools to objects (files). SCM products try to concepts. provide engineers with the right objects, in the right 1.2.1 Versioning None of these approaches is available in the vast majority of todayÕs systems [9]. In the early 70s, the first version control system appeared [33]. The idea is simple: each time a file is changed a revision is created. A file thus evolves as a succession of 1.3 Engineers support revisions, usually referred to by successive numbers (foo.1, foo.2 .). Then from any revision, a new line of change can Practitioners rejected the early systems because they were be created, leading to a revision tree. Each line is called a helping the configuration manager, and bothering branch (the branch issued from foo.2 is called foo.2.1, everybody else. A major move toward acceptance was to foo.2.2É). consider the software programmer as a major target customer: helping him/her in the usual SE activity became At the same time, 3 services were provided: History, delta, a basic service. multi user management and a bit later, merging facilities. History simply records when and who created a revision 1.3.1 Building and rebuilding along with a comment. The aim of rebuilding is to reduce compilation time after a Deltas were provided because two successive revisions are change, i.e. to recompile, automatically, only what is often very similar (98% similar in average)[22]. The idea is needed. Make [24] is the ancestor of a large family of to store only differences (the 2% that are different). Of systems based on the knowledge of ÒdependenciesÓ course, it vastly reduces the amount of required memory. between files, and their last modification date. Make proved to be extremely successful and versatile, but Multi-user management consists in preventing concurrent difficult to use and inadequate in many respects. All changes from overlapping each other. A user who wants to attempts to do substantially better have so far failed. Most change a file creates a copy and sets a lock on that file systems ÒonlyÓ generate the makefiles. (check-out); only that user can create a new revision for that file (check-in). 1.3.2 Workspace support Despite the fact that all this is 25 years old, it is still the base of the vast majority of today SCM systems. A workspace is simply a part of a file system were the files of interest (w.r.t. a given task like debug, develop etc) are 1.2.2 Product model located. The workspace acts as a sphere where the programmer can work, isolated from the outside world, for From the beginning, the focus was on file control. It is no the task duration. The SCM system is responsible for surprise to see that, even today, the data model proposed by providing the right files (often a configuration), in the right most vendors resemble a file system, plus a few attributes, file system, to let users work (almost) independently, and to often predefined. This is archaic and contrasts with todayÕs save the changes automatically when the job is done. data modeling. 1.1.1 Composition It is this service that really convinced practitioners that SCM was there to help them. A configuration is often defined as a set of files, which 1.3.3 Cooperative work support together constitute a valid software product. The question is twofold: (1) what is the real nature of a configuration, and A workspace is a support for concurrent engineering, since (2) how to build it, prove its properties and so on. many concurrent workspaces may contain and change the Surprisingly, in most systems, a configuration is not an same objects (files). Thus there is a need for (1) object, but ÒsomethingÓ special. It is a consequence of a resynchronizing objects and (2) controlling concurrent weak data model in which complex objects and explicit work. relationships are not available. Resynchronizing, so far, means merging source files. The traditional way to build a configuration is by changing Mergers found in today tools simply compare (on a line by an existing one. No correctness criteria are available. line basis) the two files to merge, and a file that is historically common to both (the common ancestor). If a In the change-set approach, a change, even it involves line is present in a file but not in the common ancestor, it many files, receives a logical name (like ÒFixBug243Ó). was added, and must be kept; if a line is present in the Later on, a configuration can be produced as a set of ancestor and not in the file, it was removed and must be change-sets to add or remove from a base configuration removed. If changes occurred at different places, the (like ÒC2 = C1 + FixBug243 Ð Extention2Ó), C1 being the merger is able to decide automatically what should be the base configuration and C2 the new one [23]. In the Adele merged file. This algorithm is simply a heuristic that system, a configuration is built interpreting a semantic provides in output a set of lines with absolutely no description which looks like a query: the system is in guaranties about correctness. Nevertheless mergers proved charge of finding the needed components based on their to work fine, to be very useful and became almost attributes and their dependencies [16]. unavoidable. See a survey in [4]. Controlling concurrent work means defining who can It is interesting to see that both the most appreciated and perform a change, when, on which attribute of which the most criticized feature concern process support. Almost object. It is one of the topics of process support that, no comments concerned the basic aspects of SCM, like currently, no tool really provides. versioning and merging. Practitioners think tools are good and stable enough but still lack efficiency, scalability and interoperability with the other SE tools.
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