A flexible framework for cooperative distributed software development

Most programming environments distinguish rigidly between software end users and software developers. Generally, end users are not granted access privileges of any kind to the system code, whereas developers are granted access privileges consistent with information hiding. We have identified the need for an intermediate level between end users and developers: reviewers. Reviewers are unique in that they must not only be granted read access to system code, but they often need to communicate detailed ideas back to the developers. The work we describe permits reviewers to suggest or propose changes to a system, not only specifying (informally) the effects they desire from a change, but also providing a detailed specification or implementation to achieve those effects whenever possible. This offers a useful new level of cooperation through feedback between the code reviewers of a software system and its primary developer(s).