The Relation of Version Control to Concurrent Programming

Annette Bieniusa, Peter Thiemann, and Stefan Wehr

In Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Science and Software Engineering. IEEE, 2008.

Abstract

Version control helps coordinating a group of people that work concurrently to achieve a shared objective. Concurrency control helps coordinating a group of threads that work concurrently to achieve a shared objective.

The seemingly superficial analogy between version control and concurrency control is deeper than expected. A comparison of three major flavors of version control systems with three influential and representative approaches to concurrency control exhibits a surprisingly close correspondences in terms of mechanism and workflow. The correspondence yields new perspectives on both, version control and concurrency control.

Bibtex

@INPROCEEDINGS{BieniusaThiemannWehr2008,
  author = {Annette Bieniusa and Peter Thiemann and Stefan Wehr},
  title = {The Relation of Version Control to Concurrent Programming},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Science and Software Engineering},
  year = 2008,
  publisher = {{IEEE}}
}

Resources

• Preprint: .pdf (© 2008 IEEE)
• An extended version appeard as TR 242 of the Department of Computer Science, University of Freiburg (.pdf version of the TR).
• CSSE 2008 homepage