CADES (Computer Aided Design and Evaluation System) was a software engineering system produced to support the design and development of the VME/B Operating System for the ICL New Range - subsequently 2900 - computers.
From its earliest days, VME/B was developed with the aid of CADES, which was built for the purpose using an underlying IDMS database (latterly upgraded to IDMS(X)). CADES was not merely a version control system for code modules: it was intended to manage all aspects of the software lifecycle from requirements capture through to field maintenance.
It was the design of CADES that paved the way for the Alvey Project in IPSE (Integrated Project Support Environments) and Process Control Engines. Because CADES was used for more than 20 years throughout the development of a large software engineering project, the data collected has been used as input to a number of studies of software evolution.