The Camera Project (1988-1992)

Synopsis

Distributed Version Management

Summary

The Camera project focuses on computer support for cooperative development in loosely-coupled distributed environments, i.e. situations in which network connections are not permanently available, or are too slow or unreliable to provide full integration among the participating systems. The main issue in these situations is that distribution of data is explicit: users must copy data into their own environment before they can access it. Also, changes must be transferred to other users explicitly. Since multiple copies of the same data can exist, users can encounter version management problems, i.e. when several people modify the same data. The Camera system (designed in the context of this project) is a development environment aimed at this situation. It provides support for development activities, a.o. through the use of an object-oriented database as data store, and by advanced facilities for history management. In addition, the Camera system provides high-level support for communication among users, abstracting from the details of communication channels. The system provides mechanisms for the exchange of complex collections of data objects among users, and for the combination of the results of parallel development (merging). The Camera system has been implemented on UNIX workstations.

Contact

Gert Florijn (florijn@serc.nl), Atze Dijkstra (atze@cs.uu.nl), Doaitse Swierstra (doaitse@cs.uu.nl).

References (incomplete)

• E. Lippe: A Survey of Version Control Systems SERC report 88/06, SERC Utrecht, 1988.
• E. Bogaart & E. Lippe: NSE and DSEE: An Evaluation of two Distributed Version Control Systems, SERC report 88/07, SERC Utrecht, 1988.
• G.H. Florijn: A Technical Overview of the Portable Common Tool Environment SERC report 88/08, SERC Utrect, 1988.
• E. Lippe, G.H.Florijn & E. Bogaart: the Architecture of a Distributed Version Control System, SERC report 89/04, SERC Utrecht, 1989.
• M. Wijers & E. Bogaart: IGOD: an Interactive Graphical Object Database SERC report 89/05, SERC Utrecht, 1989.
• E. Lippe: Index Structures for Integral Version Management SERC report 90/02, SERC Utrecht, 1990.
• E. Lippe & G.H. Florijn: Derivation Management within Object Management Systems SERC report 90/10, SERC Utrecht, 1990.
• E. Lippe & G.H. Florijn: Camera: a Distributed Version Control System SERC report 91/01, SERC Utrecht, 1991.
• E. Lippe & G.H. Florijn: Implementation Techniques for Integral Version Management Proceedings of ECOOP'91 (Pierre America, Ed.), Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science.
• E. Lippe & N. van Oosterom: Operation-based Merging SERC report 91/11, SERC Utrecht, 1991.
• C.G. van Schaik: A Graphical User Interface for the Camera Prototype. Master thesis INF/SCR-92-09, Utrecht University, Dept. of Computer Science, 1992.
• E. Lippe, G.H. Florijn, A. Dijkstra, N. van Oosterom & S.D. Swierstra: Camera: Cooperative Development in Loosely Coupled Distributed Environments SERC report 92/06, SERC Utrecht, 1992.
• G.H. Florijn, E. Lippe, A. Dijkstra, N. van Oosterom & S.D. Swierstra: Camera: Cooperation in Open Distributed Environments Proceedings of the Europen/Usenix Spring Workshop, Jersey, Channel Islands, 1992.
• J.M.C. de Vroed: Distributie in Camera: Het Ondersteunen van Samenwerking. SERC report 92/9, SERC Utrecht, 1992
• E. Lippe, Camera: Support for Distributed Cooperative Work, PhD Thesis, Utrecht University, 1992.
• E. Lippe & G.H. Florijn: Derivation Management in the Camera Object Management System. Proceedings Computing Science in the Netherlands - CSN'92, 1992.
• E. Lippe & N. van Oosterom: Operation-based Merging. Proceedings ACM SIGSOFT 92 - Fifth Symposium on Software Development Environments, 1992
• G.H. Florijn, L. Soepenberg & A. Dijkstra, Mapping Objects to Files: a UNIX File System Interface to an Object Management System. Proceedings Computing Science in the Netherlands - CSN'93, (H. Wijshoff, Ed.)