Construction of an Integrated and Extensible Software Architecture Modelling Environment

Constructing complex software engineering tools and integrating them with other tools to form an effective development environment is a very challenging task. Difficulties are exacerbated when the tool under construction needs to be extensible, flexible and enhanceable by end users. We describe the construction of SoftArch, a novel software architecture modelling and analysis tool, which needs to support an extensible set of architecture abstractions and processes, a flexible modelling notation and editing tools, a user-controllable and extensible set of analysis agents and integration with OOA/D CASE tools and programming environments. We developed solutions to these problems using an extensible meta-model, user-tailorable notation editors, event-driven analysis agents, and component-based integration with process support, OOA/D, code generation and reverse engineering tools.

[1]  Kalle Lyytinen,et al.  MetaEdit+: A Fully Configurable Multi-User and Multi-Tool CASE and CAME Environment , 1996, CAiSE.

[2]  John C. Grundy,et al.  Tool integration, collaboration and user interaction issues in component-based software architectures , 1998, Proceedings Technology of Object-Oriented Languages. TOOLS 28 (Cat. No.98TB100271).

[3]  Thomas J. Mowbray,et al.  Inside CORBA - distributed object standards and applications , 1998, Addison-Wesley object technology series.

[4]  Jürgen Ebert,et al.  Meta-CASE in Practice: a Case for KOGGE , 1997, CAiSE.

[5]  Ian Thomas,et al.  Definitions of Tool Integration for Environments , 1992, IEEE Softw..

[6]  Ralph E. Johnson,et al.  Patterns Generate Architectures , 1994, ECOOP.

[7]  Terry Quatrani,et al.  Visual modeling with rational Rose and UML , 1998, Addison-Wesley object technology series.

[8]  Mark Apperley,et al.  An architecture for decentralised process modelling and enactment , 1998 .

[9]  Paul Clements,et al.  Software Architecture in Practice: Addison-Wesley , 1998 .

[10]  Gail E. Kaiser,et al.  Workgroup middleware for distributed projects , 1998, Proceedings Seventh IEEE International Workshop on Enabling Technologies: Infrastucture for Collaborative Enterprises (WET ICE '98) (Cat. No.98TB100253).

[11]  Paul Clements,et al.  Software architecture in practice , 1999, SEI series in software engineering.

[12]  C. Phillips,et al.  Designing the client user interface for a methodology independent OO CASE tool , 1998, Proceedings 1998 Australasian Computer Human Interaction Conference. OzCHI'98 (Cat. No.98EX234).

[13]  Mark A. Linton,et al.  Unidraw: a framework for building domain-specific graphical editors , 1990, TOIS.

[14]  Terry Quatrani Visual modelling with Rational Rose 2000 and UML , 1998 .

[15]  John Grundy,et al.  Directions in modelling large-scale software architectures , 2000, Proceedings International Conference on Software Methods and Tools. SMT 2000.

[16]  John C. Grundy,et al.  Aspect-oriented requirements engineering for component-based software systems , 1999, Proceedings IEEE International Symposium on Requirements Engineering (Cat. No.PR00188).

[17]  Mary Shaw,et al.  Software architecture - perspectives on an emerging discipline , 1996 .

[18]  John C. Grundy,et al.  Software architecture modelling, analysis and implementation with SoftArch , 2001, Proceedings of the 34th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[19]  John C. Grundy,et al.  Constructing component-based software engineering environments: issues and experiences , 2000, Inf. Softw. Technol..

[20]  J. Barrie Thompson,et al.  MetaMOOSEan object-oriented framework for the construction of CASE tools , 2000, Inf. Softw. Technol..

[21]  Roger Sessions COM and DCOM - Microsoft's vision for distributed objects , 1997 .

[22]  Jason E. Robbins,et al.  Cognitive support, UML adherence, and XMI interchange in Argo/UML , 2000, Inf. Softw. Technol..