Replacing version-control with job-control

Abstract

Version-control is a mechanism for managing the multiple versions of the software objects that are created during the software development process. Traditionally, version-control consists of providing tools for generating a branching tree of versions, with facilities for reserving a given version for modification. In the Workshop System the focus of version-control is shifted from the objects produced during the software process to the software process itself. Objects called jobs are created in a project database to explicitly instantiate the process information. The Workshop System then provides operations for manipulating jobs, with these manipulations providing the functionality normally associated with version-control.