An Abstraction-Based Rule Approach to Large-Scale Information Systems Development

By introducing a rule language in IS development business rules can be explicitly represented. However, the use of rules implies that we have to find ways to deal with rule capture and complexity of large rule bases. The paper argues for an abstraction-based rule approach to information systems development. Simplifications of a specification are provided by allowing different views (abstractions) of the rule base and a framework for describing abstractions is suggested. A view is generated by a set of explicitly defined abstraction mechanisms, manually produced by a developer, or a combination of the two. Rather than operating on a full specification, relevant views can be applied at different stages of the development process (e.g., in rule capture) and then eventually integrated into a new version of the full specification. Views may be updated and multiple views are allowed to co-exist. Supporting multiple views and various versions of views demands for a versioning mechanism to keep track of the various versions of a full specification.