Separation of Concerns in Software Configuration Management

Separation of concerns is one of the foundational rules of software engineering. Separating the aspects of systems that perform different roles simplifies the code of software systems, making those systems easier to implement, easier to understand, and less prone to bugs. Similarly, software configuration management (SCM) systems are one of the foundational tools of software engineering. SCM tools have proved to be so valuable to software engineering that no significant system is implemented without the use of SCM tools. However, in the SCM systems themselves, many important concerns remain unseparated, particularly the key concerns of program storage and program organization. This lack of separation limits the functionality that can be provided by the SCM system. I have been building an SCM called Coven system based on separating the concerns of program storage, program organization, and inter-programmer coordination. I believe that by separating these aspects of the SCM system, that the resulting system becomes more powerful, and enhances both the basic functionality of the system, in particular its ability to be used to handle separation of the overlapping concerns that make up the real systems developed using the SCM system. A more detailed description of the Coven SCM system can be found in [3].