DocumentCode :
77804
Title :
Early Detection of Collaboration Conflicts and Risks
Author :
Brun, Yuriy ; Holmes, Reid ; Ernst, Michael D. ; Notkin, David
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Comput. Sci., Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, USA
Volume :
39
Issue :
10
fYear :
2013
fDate :
Oct. 2013
Firstpage :
1358
Lastpage :
1375
Abstract :
Conflicts among developers´ inconsistent copies of a shared project arise in collaborative development and can slow progress and decrease quality. Identifying and resolving such conflicts early can help. Identifying situations which may lead to conflicts can prevent some conflicts altogether. By studying nine open-source systems totaling 3.4 million lines of code, we establish that conflicts are frequent, persistent, and appear not only as overlapping textual edits but also as subsequent build and test failures. Motivated by this finding, we develop a speculative analysis technique that uses previously unexploited information from version control operations to precisely diagnose important classes of conflicts. Then, we design and implement Crystal, a publicly available tool that helps developers identify, manage, and prevent conflicts. Crystal uses speculative analysis to make concrete advice unobtrusively available to developers.
Keywords :
configuration management; groupware; program diagnostics; public domain software; software engineering; Crystal; collaboration conflicts; collaborative development; open-source systems; overlapping textual edits; publicly available tool; source code; speculative analysis technique; subsequent build-and-test failures; version control operations; Collaboration; Computer science; Control systems; Crystals; History; Open source software; Terminology; Collaborative development; Crystal; collaboration conflicts; developer awareness; speculative analysis; version control;
fLanguage :
English
Journal_Title :
Software Engineering, IEEE Transactions on
Publisher :
ieee
ISSN :
0098-5589
Type :
jour
DOI :
10.1109/TSE.2013.28
Filename :
6520859
Link To Document :
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