Software version management system

A software version management system for automatically collecting and recompiling updated versions of component software objects comprising a software program for operation on a plurality of personal computers coupled together in a distributed software environment via a local area network and wherein said objects include the source and binary files for various of said software program and are stored in various different local and remote storage means through said environment, said component software objects being periodically updated via environment editing means by various users at said personal computers and stored in designated storage means, said system including:

• models comprising system objects,
• each of said models representative of the source versions of a particular component software object,
• each of said models containing object pointers including a unique name of the object, a unique identifier descriptive of the cronological updating of its current version, information as to an object's dependencies on other objects and a pathname representative of the residence storage means of the object,
• means in said editing means to notify said management system when any one of said objects is being edited by a user,
• means in said management system in response to notification of object editing to track said edited objects and alter their respective models to the current version thereof,
• said management system upon command adapted to retieve and recompile said source files corresponding to said altered models and load the binary files of said altered component software objects and their dependent objects into said computers.