CoEd — A tool for versioning of hierarchical documents

Abstract

In this paper, we report on our experiences from developing and using a tool to provide optimal version control support during co-operative development of hierarchical documents. The main problem in co-operative work is to maintain an overview of how the document is evolving, and at the same time to maintain a complete version history. We extend traditional version control in the sense that we provide version control on both the entire structures of the document and its constituent parts. This enables us to establish natural baselines of the document that have actually existed, and furthermore our system is capable of manipulating directly the structure of the document while retaining complete version history. CoEd consists of four browsers, which show the configuration, version, hierarchy and text aspects of the document. We describe the analysis and considerations that led us to the actual design and implementation of the two prototypes of CoEd. Furthermore, we detail the experiences we have gained from actually using these prototypes, compare our work with that of others, and generalise our results to the field of software development.