User Recovery and Reversal in Interactive Systems

Abstract

Interactive systems, such as editors and program development environments, should explicitly support facilities that permit a user to reverse the effects of past actions and to restore an object to a prior state. A model for interactive systems that allows such recovery facilities to be defined precisely and user and system responsibilities to be delineated is presented. Various techniques for implementing recovery are described. Application of a general recovery facility to support reverse execution is discussed. A program development system (called COPE} with extensive recovery facilities, including reverse execution, is described. © 1984, ACM. All rights reserved.