A conceptual design analysis of Git

• Main Author: Perez De Rosso, Santiago (Santiago Nicolas)
• Other Authors: Daniel Jackson.
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2015
• Subjects: Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/97817

Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2015. === Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. === Includes bibliographical references (pages 75-77). === 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. === by Santiago Perez De Rosso. === S.M.