In order to enable the implementation of large-scale applications in the programmable workstation environment, with multiple application developers participating in design, coding and testing, it is important not only to have an appropriate technological and architectural base for development, but also to provide appropriate and effective management of and control over the development process and development resources. Established techniques exist in the host-based application development environment for addressing such issues, but historically, the considerations of large-scale management and control have been overlooked in the workstation environment due to the relatively minor nature of workstation-based development projects in the past.
Two areas worthy of note in the workstation-based development environment are the management of developmental risk, and the management and control of development resources that are used and created during the application development process. This chapter will briefly describe these issues and offer some suggestions as to how they may be effectively resolved. Much of the discussion in this chapter will deal with Presentation Manager applications written using the C programming language, but the techniques described may be adapted to suit other environments and programming languages.