A New Approach to Construction and Deployment of Software

Conventional approaches to software management separate the task of software construction from that of software deployment. However, these systems are very similar in operation. Both track the relationships between software and ensure these relationships are maintained, although there are substantial differences in scale and type of relationship. Common difficulties in implementing either system arise from the inability of each to communicate directly with the other. For instance, the common task of configuring a build for its environment is only difficult because the construction system cannot access existing deployment information and has to duplicate it. This thesis investigates the design of a single system that can perform both software construction and software deployment tasks. Through the development of a prototype, this thesis is able to demonstrate the capabilities and advantages of this approach. In particular, the prototype is unique among its peers in being capable of correctly using a cross compiler.