Patent ID: 8245192

Claim:
A method executed by a processor of building and using software development environments, comprising: establishing a development zone in response to a request received from a first client device, the development zone comprising a recording of state-based references to files and folders of a master production build in a read-only virtual copy of the master production build and a read-write virtual copy of the master production build, wherein the state-based references comprise the recording of a date stamp and timestamp of the files and folders of the master production build, and wherein the development zone is a virtual server environment residing on a staging server, recording changes to files and folders of the master production build in existence at the time of creation of the development zone made by the first client device and recording creations of new files in the read-write virtual copy of the master production build made by the first client device; receiving a request from the first client device to commit changes to the master production build, the changes made by the first client device in the development zone; adding to the read-write virtual copy of the master production build changes committed to the master production build by a second client device subsequent to the creation of the development zone; identifying individual files and folders of the master production build in existence at the creation of the development zone subsequently changed by the first client device and also changed by the second client device subsequent to the establishment of the development zone and committed by the second client device to the master production build; notifying the first client device of potential conflicts arising from individual files receiving changes from both the first client device and the second client device subsequent to the establishment of the development zone and committed by the second client device to the master production build; and testing changes committed by the first client device and pushing the changes to the master production build on a production server.