Bridges: Tools to Extend the Vesta Conguration Management System Bridges: Tools to Extend the Vesta Conguration Management System

The charter of SRC i s t o a d v ance both the state of knowledge and the state of the art in computer systems. From our establishment in 1984, we h a v e performed basic and applied research to support Digital's business objectives. Our current work includes exploring distributed personal computing on multiple platforms, networking, programming technology, system modelling and management techniques , and selected applications. Our strategy is to test the technical and practical value of our ideas by building hardware and software prototypes and using them as daily tools. Interesting systems are too complex to be evaluated solely in the abstract; extended use allows us to investigate their properties in depth. This experience is useful in the short term in rening our designs, and invaluable in the long term in advancing our knowledge. Most of the major advances in information systems have come through this strategy, including personal computing, distributed systems, and the Internet. We also perform complementary work of a more mathematical avor. Some of it is in established elds of theoretical computer science, such as the analysis of algorithms, computational geometry, and logics of programming. Other work explores new ground motivated by problems that arise in our systems research. We h a v e a strong commitment to communicating our results; exposing and testing our ideas in the research and development communities leads to improved understanding. Our research report series supplements publication in professional journals and conferences. We seek users for our prototype systems among those with whom we h a v e common interests, and we encourage collaboration with university researchers. This work may not be copied or reproduced in whole or in part for any commercial purpose. Permission to copy in whole or in part without payment of fee is granted for nonprot educational and research purposes provided that all such whole or partial copies include the following: a notice that such copying is by an acknowledgment of the authors and individual contributors to the work; and all applicable portions of the copyright notice. Copying, reproducing, or republishing for any other purpose shall require a license with payment of fee to the Systems Research Center. All rights reserved. iv Authors' Abstract Vesta is a highly exible conguration management system that supports large-scale development. Vesta provides a repository of immutable objects and a functional programming language for writing concise yet complete descriptions …