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Abstract

A work group computing system for facilitating programmable logic device design among multiple engineers has a global work space including design project source files, a compilation basis, a compilation report text file, a binary assignments database and a user-readable assignments text file. Any number of local work spaces contain downloaded versions of any of the project source files, local compilation processing results for that user and a local assignment database containing records of downloaded assignments. Downloaded project source files or assignments are assigned states by the user such as default, locked, owned-write, owned-read only to facilitate coordination amongst the user engineers. The system controls editing of files so that two engineers may not inadvertently edit the same global source file at the same time. Individual engineers receive automatic updates of new versions of source files; files that are being edited are locked, and an isolation mode allows an engineer to work with source files in an unchanging state. Each engineer incrementally compiles local changes made to source files in his own user work space to produce a local set of compilation and processing results. Incremental compilation uses unedited source files, the basis from the global work space, and the user's edited local files to produce the local processing results. Upon satisfactory results, edited source files and local processing results may replace and overwrite global files and results. Multiple engineers are allowed to work on complex logic design that can be implemented on a single, large capacity device.

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