A conceptual design analysis of Git

It is commonly asserted that the success of a software development project, and the usability of the final product, depend on the quality of the concepts that underlie its design. Yet this hypothesis has not been systematically explored by researchers, and conceptual design has not played the central role in the research and teaching of software engineering that one might expect. As part of a new research project to explore conceptual design, we are engaging in a series of case studies. This thesis reports on our case study on Git, a popular-yet sometimes puzzling-version control system. In an attempt to understand the root causes of its complexity, we analyze its conceptual model and identify some undesirable properties; we then present a reworking of the conceptual model that forms the basis of Gitless, our redesign of Git.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2015

Author dc:creator

• Perez De Rosso, Santiago (Santiago Nicolas)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Daniel Jackson.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/97817

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/97817