eXtreme Collaborative Development Environment

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eXtreme Collaborative Development Environment

• Programmer-oriented real-time virtual
  collaboration tool

G2007.026
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Motivation

• Q How can geographically separate programmers
  collaboratively develop in real-time?
• Experience during co-op and academic terms showed
  a need to collaborate
• Poor collaboration tools currently available
• instant messaging
• e-mail
• screen sharing

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Solution

• Synchronization server client
• Eclipse plug-in
• Collaborative process metric database

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What We Built
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Design Alternatives

• IDE
• Build a new dedicated environment
• Extend an existing development environment
• Synchronization
• Locking-centric
• Non-blocking synchronous
• Predictive client pull

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Advantages

• Integration with Eclipse
• Leverages a mature IDE and toolset including the
  JFace graphics library
• Supports multiple languages
• Provides collaborative functionality without
  learning completely new software
• Non-blocking Synchronous
• Full real-time editing and state consistency

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Base Technologies

• Eclipse IDE version 3.1.2
• Java 1.4.2 for TCP/IP-based communication
  libraries
• MySQL 5.0 for event logging
• JMF 2.1.1 and RTP protocol for voice communication

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Synchronization Design

• Asynchronous message passing
• Clients and servers push messages
• The algorithm provides
• Initial project and document state
• Real-time updates to documents
• Router and server components to allow geographic
  scaling

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Synchronization Design
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Synchronization Design
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Synchronization Design
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Eclipse Integration Design

• Text editor integration
• Shows other users cursor positions
• Merges changes in real-time
• Context menu integration
• Link unlink projects from XCDE
• Refresh linked resources
• Import wizard
• Pull a project from an XCDE server
• File system integration
• Move and delete hooks
• Communication tools
• Instant messaging
• Voice chat

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Usage Scenarios

• Q How might XCDE be used in practice?
• Supports multiple usage scenarios
• Programmer education
• Collaborative development
• Collaborative debugging
• Development process management

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Results of Testing Verification

• Prototype thoroughly tested on multiple occasions
• Corner cases in the synchronization algorithms
  were discovered and corrected
• All core requirements were met

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Sponsors Consultants

• We gratefully acknowledge
• Dr. Ajit Singh for acting as our consultant and
  providing his knowledge, expertise support
• The Eclipse Community
• MySQL