An enabler architecture for computer-supported cooperative work applications

Computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) has emerged as an important area of research, where both commercial and academic interest is growing. This field draws from developments in distributed computing, communications, man-machine interactions, artificial intelligence and sociology. In CSCW applications, the emphasis is on user-machine-user interaction rather than on user-machine interaction. In the recent past, a few concurrent software engineering tools and environments have been reported, but most of these have been sculpted from the ground up. In this paper, we propose a concurrency enabler architecture, using which a nonconcurrent application can be made concurrent. Using this approach, we have implemented a concurrent editor, a debugger, an inspection tool and a conferencing and execution environment. Our experiences in using these concurrent tools are also reported