VDE
The OpenVMS Development Environment (VDE) is the set of tools that the OpenVMS development group uses to control and to track changes to the multiple VDE libraries that comprise the OpenVMS Master Pack.
A context is a set of default development stream, architecture and facility used for a VDE session. Contexts allow users to easily switch an entire group of related VDE default settings among a set of possible values. Contexts can be private and user-defined, or they can be publically established and available for whole groups of users. Project leaders can establish a set of contexts for use by a particular group of users.
A facility is a CMS library managed by VDE.
A reservation is an act of checking modules out for editing. Reservations can be grouped together using sessions. One can create a session that contains a group of modules involved in a particular modification or fix; all modules contained in a session can be referenced in a single command.
A build step is an action (compile, copy or link) in the build process.
A development stream is a CMS class that is coherent across all facilities in a VDE library.
A descendant stream is a stream branched off of another stream. A descendant stream tree can look like this"
VDE> sh Stream V1.0 /desc
Stream V1.0 "Comment"
Descendant streams:
V1.0 (main)
STREAM_A_0 (Noinherit)
STREAM_A_1 (Noinherit)
STREAM_A_2 (Noinherit)
STREAM_B_1 (Noinherit)
STREAM_A_3 (Noinherit)
V1.1 (Inherited)
UPDATE2_A (Noinherit)
E1.2 (Inherited)
PARIS_4_X (Noinherit)
PARIS_3_X (Noinherit)
V1.2 (Inherited)
PARIS_BASE (Noinherit)
PARIS_BL1 (Inherited)
ANNECY_BL1_BASE (Noinherit)
V12R_BASE (Noinherit)
V12R (Inherited)
V12R_4_A (Noinherit)
V12R_4_B (Noinherit)
A module is a specific file that VDE is keeping track of, akin to CMS element. Like elements, modules have generations, and a particular generation of a module comprises a development stream. Each module belongs to a certain facility. Propagation is an automatic process that causes the replacement of a source module in the specified replacement stream, and into all descendant streams. Folding is a manual folm of propagation. A fold record is created as a reminder that a module must be manually propagated into parallel and successor streams.
