Automatic Configuration Management in a General Object-Based Environment

To obtain higher productivity and better quality in software development, it is important to provide the programmer with a cooperative and helpful environment. To obtain better environments, a trade-off is usually made between, on one hand, a simple level of common representation of data which facilitates the easy integration of third party tools and, on the other hand, a high-level representation with a high degree of collaboration between tools. We propose a new framework which avoids this tradeoff, and closes the gap between openness of a system and easiness of integration of tools A General Object-Based Environment (GOBE) is based on an object-oriented view of the whole environment, i. e. of the tools, data, and persons. It combines the ability to allow collaboration and sharing of knowledge with a fairly easy way to introduce new tools and data and persons as well. We briefly describe the architecture of a GOBE and its basic component , i. e. the object. Then an example is given of elegant solutions to some problems from software configuration management. The solutions show how combining objects with the abstraction mechanisms of classification, specialization, and aggregation creates a knowledge base. Based on this knowledge base most of the operations to be performed in configuration management can be automated and made transparent to the user.