Constructing Distributed SDEs using an

This paper deals with the construction of distributed software development environments (SDE). Distributed SDEs must often run on heterogeneous hardware and software platforms. A promising approach to solve this heterogeneity problem is to implement tools, at least their front-ends, in Java. We propose a repository-centered SDE architecture in which an active repository ooers services such as views, transactions, and access controls and, in addition, provides an integrated, distributed notiication mechanism. The notiication mechanism allows tool writers to implement, with very low eeort, a network-wide, view-independent change propagation which covers both interactive and batch applications. The architecture allows tools, or the whole environment, to have multiple windows. Each window basically corresponds to an independent process, and processes can run truly in parallel (not just pseudo-parallel). The paper describes the details of the architecture, issues concerning the repository, notably concurrent access through APIs in Java and C, and distributed notiication, and experiences which we have drawn from several tool implementations.