Object-Oriented Development of Interactive Systems with OMT

This paper presents the OMT++ methodology that provides an object-oriented approach for building graphical applications applying the paradigm based on the MVC approach. All the phases of system development from analysis to implementation are covered. OMT++ aims at getting the specification, design, and implementation correct at the outset. Iteration is reduced and maintainability of documentation is improved by delaying the decisions to the points where all essential information is available. This paper also presents a notation for specifying user interfaces. This notation makes the systematic specification of user interfaces possible, thereby decreasing the need of prototyping. This approach provides means for analyzing the user interface in order to detect problems in usability as early as possible. This approach also supports the design of reusable interface components. According to OMT++, applications are constructed from software components which each have a specific purpose and behavior. To enable the reuse of these components, we introduce a mechanism called 'abstract partner' to facilitate the implementation in C++. OMT++ is being applied in the development of a large network management system having over one million lines of C++ code running in X11 environment.