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Inter-Office Memorandum
To Distribution Date July 14, 1977
From Wendell Shultz Location Palo Alto
Subject Mesa 3.0 Organization SOD/SO
XEROX
Filed on: (Lopez)Mesa3.0.memo
Attached are the work plan and release' definition for Mesa 3.0, which is now' under
development. Please review their content in preparation for a formal approval of the
contents of this Mesa release. Questions and comments should be directed to John Wick
As noted in the release definition, several features of old releases are being temporarily
retained in order to ease conversion of existing source code. In some cases, compatibility is
easily maintained and carries low cost; in others, retaining the old design severely constrains
the development of a new feature. We need to determine the period over which
compatibility will. be maintained, and a general policy on this issue.
A meeting to discuss and approve the definition of Mesa 3.0 has been tentatively scheduled
for Wednesday, July 20. Please let me know if this date is convenient.
Attachments
.
Distri bution:
Geschke
Lampson
Lynch
Mitchell XEROX SDD ARCHIVES
Szelong I have read and understood
Pages ____'!""To.-----
Reviewer Date _ _ __
c: .J. Weaver
J. Wick
# of Pages ___Ref " -! . "'..,~jr/ ~) }/.
Inter-Office Memorandum
To John Weaver Date June 30, 1971
From John Wick Location Palo Alto
Subject Mesa 3.0 Development Work Plan Organization SDD/SO
XEROX
Filed on:
Introduction
This document describes the work plan for Mesa development. It addresses the planning,
implementation, and release of the next version of the Mesa system (designated Mesa 3.0).
This is a preliminary work plan, which will be updated as the release definition is refined
and approved. Longer range planning is discussed in the Mesa Release Procedure.
Mesa 3.0 will include a number of improvements, the foremost of which is an
implementation of configurations and a binding scheme for constructing configurations
from a set of independently compiled modules. Configurations represent a major extension
in all components of the system. The primary emphasis in this plan is on the effects of
introducing and converting to configurations.
For the most part, changes to source programs required by Mesa 3.0 are confined to a small
number of infrequently used constrUGts. In addition, most applications contain a single
module which loads and initializes the rest of their components; such modules will require
more extensive changes. Good documentation will be essential in planning these
modifications. Therefore, Mesa 3.0 will not be released until existing documentation is in
agreement with the changes and additional features described in the Release Definition. The
documentation will be subject to the same alpha test procedures as the software.
Mesa support is included in this plan only to the extent that a fixed level of manpower has
been allocated for all support functions. This commitment is known to be insufficient to
satisfy the entire support requirement; we anticipate that some resource from outside the
development team will be assigned to assist in this task. Mesa support will be