Toward Core Point Evolution using Water Ripple Model

With the continually-increasing capability of computer hardware and scale of computer software, the complexity of software is also continually increasing, and has manifest itself as one of the key factors that limit the significant improvement of software quality and productivity. However, traditional methods, such as waterfalllike model, component-based programming, software architecture method and agent oriented programming, have encountered more fundamental difficulties in processing complex system development. To address this challenge, we have witnessed that the thought of water ripple model origins from the evolution of water wave when a stone is threw into the water. In this paper, we have proposed three designing core point models, including the high level abstract core point model, the feature core point model and the function core point model, and interactive mode with each other aiming to control the structural complexity of the whole software life cycle. Furthermore, we have proposed a water ripple model of software development process with loosely-coupled correlated core point evolution. The development of a complex system is translated into the evolution of core points. With the persistent evolution thought of water ripple, the development process has strong expansibility and flexible reusability. Key–Words: software development process; water ripple model; core point evolution; software architecture; agent oriented programming; component-based programming