Pilot: A software engineering case study

Abstract

Pilot is an operating system implemented in the strongly typed language Mesa and produced in an environment containing a number of sophisticated software engineering and development tools. We report here on the strengths and deficiencies of these tools and techniques as observed in the Pilot project. We report on the ways that these tools have allowed a division of labor among several programming teams, and we examine the problems introduced within each different kind of development programming activity (ie. source editing, compiling, binding, integration, and testing).