Distributed Software Development (DSD) has recently evolved, resulting in an increase in the available literature. Organizations now have a tendency to make greater development efforts in more attractive zones. The main advantage of this lies in a greater availability of human resources in decentralized zones at less cost. There are, however, some disadvantages which are caused by the distance that separates the development teams. Coordination and communication become more difficult as the software components are sourced from different places, thus affecting project organization, project control, and product quality. New processes and tools are consequently necessary. This work presents the findings of a systematic review of the literature related to the challenges concerning Distributed Software Development, whose purpose is to identify the solutions and improvements proposed up to the present day.

/pdf/challenges-and-improvements-in-distributed-software-3v605yraek.pdf

Challenges and improvements in distributed software development: a systematic review

A computer-implemented collaborative editing method includes receiving input from a user of a browser-based document editing application on a document displayed by the application; identifying a current location in the document for a cursor of a first user executing the application; receiving from a central server system data that reflects changes made to the document by one or more users other than the first user and current positions in the document of cursors for the one or more other user; updating a document model stored on a computing device that is executing the browser-based application and rendering at least a portion of the model to the browser; and rendering the current positions of the cursors for the one or more other users to the browser.

Collaborative cursors in a hosted word processor

Operational Transformation (OT) is a consistency maintenance technique for collaborative editing systems-a special class of distributed applications for supporting human-computer-human interaction and collaboration over communication networks. The theory of causality has been the foundation of all prior OT systems, but it is inadequate to meet essential OT requirements in functionality and correctness. In this paper, we analyze the limitation of the causality theory, propose a novel theory of operation context as the new foundation for OT systems, and present a new OT algorithm-Context-based OT (COT)-which provides uniform and efficient solutions to both consistency maintenance and undo problems. The COT algorithm has been implemented and used for supporting a range of novel collaborative applications. The context theory and context vectors are potentially applicable to other distributed computing applications.

Context-Based Operational Transformation in Distributed Collaborative Editing Systems

A computer-implemented method for coordinating documents between computer systems includes identifying, on a computing device, changes made by a user to a document having a model stored on the computing device, with corresponding models stored on a remote client and a server system; generating from the identified changes, one or more mutations that describe the changes and a one or more locations that correspond to positions in the model where the changes are to be provided; receiving one or more mutations from the server system and transforming the generated mutations using the received mutations; and updating the model stored on the computing device using the transformed mutations.

Real-Time Collaboration in a Hosted Word Processor

In various embodiments, a computerized method includes presenting an electronic document to one user out of multiple users that have edit access to the electronic document as part of a collaborative editing of the electronic document. The computerized method may include receiving an input from the user to edit the electronic document, as well as invoking a lock to prevent edit access by the other users responsive to receiving the input from the user to edit the electronic document.

Shared edit access of electronic content

Complex 3D digital media creation demands anytime and anywhere collaboration support. The CoMaya project aims to incorporate such advanced collaboration capabilities into Autodesk Maya. This paper reports some research findings and lessons we learned from extending the transparent adaptation approach from 2D office applications to 3D digital media design tools.

CoMaya: incorporating advanced collaboration capabilities into 3d digital media design tools

With the development of new web technologies, web-based collaborative applications, exemplified by office applications, are emerging to take advantage of web's attractive features. We propose to plug a collaborative engine into web-based office applications so that advanced collaboration capabilities can be seamlessly integrated without compromising or modifying their conventional capabilities. This engine lies on application-independent data addressing and operation models to be reusable for a wide range of diverse applications without being modified. in this paper, we present a data addressing model for web-based word processors, which complies with the model used by the engine and shall lay a good foundation for investigating data addressing models for other web-based applications.

integrating advanced collaborative capabilities into web-based word processors

Modeling is commonly used in the process of software development. UML (Unified Modeling Language) is a standard software modeling language and has been widely adopted for software analysis and design. As software systems are getting lager and more complex nowadays, software modeling using UML often requires collective and collaborative efforts from multiple software designers. In contrast, most of today's software modeling applications are still single-user-oriented and do not offer much help to coordinate interaction and collaboration among team members. In this paper, we will present the technical challenges and solutions in providing advanced collaboration capabilities and transparently integrating them into mainstream software modeling applications to effectively facilitate collaboration among geographically dispersed software designers. The work has been tested and demonstrated by the design of CoRSA (Collaborative Rational Software Architect) ? an experimental collaborative software modeling prototype based on RSA, one of the most widely used commercial software modeling applications in the market.

Real-Time Collaborative Software Modeling Using UML with Rational Software Architect

Recent advancements in collaboration technology have shown that it is possible to convert existing single-user applications into real-time collaborative applications without modifying the source codes of the single-user applications. Such conversion relies on the API (Application Programming Interface) provided by the single-user applications. Poorly designed APIs make such conversion difficult, inefficient, or even impossible. Until now, it is not well understood what features APIs should provide to facilitate conversion of single-user applications into collaborative applications. This paper presents recommendations of the features single-user application APIs should provide to facilitate conversion. The results are based on what we have learnt from converting Microsoft Visio, into real-time collaborative Visio (CoVisio), and our previous experience in building CoWord and CoPowerPoint.

/pdf/api-design-recommendations-for-facilitating-conversion-of-17xgbf4fiv.pdf

API design recommendations for facilitating conversion of single-user applications into collaborative applications

Boolean operations are widely used in CAD applications to construct complex objects out of primitive ones. Conflict resolution of Boolean operations is a special and challenging issue in real-time collaborative CAD systems, which allow a group of geographically dispersed users to jointly perform design tasks over computer networks. In this paper, we contribute a novel conflict resolution technique that can retain the effects of individual conflicting Boolean operations by integrating them. This technique, named as CRIBO (Conflict Resolution by Integration for Boolean Operations), is in a sharp contrast to other ones that either desert the effects of some operations or keep the effects of different operations in different versions of the design. It is particularly good for collaborative CAD applications, where integration of different mindsets is a main source of creation and innovation. This technique lays a good foundation for resolving conflicting operations in design-oriented collaborative applications that require collective wisdom and stimulus of creation.

Steven Xia

Papers

CoMaya: incorporating advanced collaboration capabilities into 3d digital media design tools

integrating advanced collaborative capabilities into web-based word processors

Real-Time Collaborative Software Modeling Using UML with Rational Software Architect

API design recommendations for facilitating conversion of single-user applications into collaborative applications

Conflict resolution of Boolean operations by integration in real-time collaborative CAD systems