T ool Support for Object-Oriented Design Patterns

Design patterns are quickly being adopted by the object-oriented community. The application of design patterns to object-oriented software development has already brought positive results in practice. Reported benefits include significant increases in quality and productivity. There are however no tools yet to support the process of pattern-based design. An important reason for this lack of computer support may be that design patterns are written in a rather informal way, which makes them unsuitable for automation. Computer support of the design process however, could well lead to further improvements on objectoriented design. We are developing a pattern-based environment to support the design and implementation of object-oriented software. This paper gives a preliminary overview of the functionality of this system.