Software Creation: Reproducing Human Cognitive Processes in Automatic Software Design

The prime goals of this project are (1) developing an automatic software design system that aims at reproducing human cognitive processes; (2) automating software design by shifting the prototyping and modi cations to higher design levels rather than source code. This paper introduces an improved version of the experimental expert system CREATOR2/3 for automatic design of switching software. Basic features of this system are: object-oriented (OO) representation of the design process knowledge, composed of design rules for detailing, and tacit knowledge; using multiple strategies in applying this knowledge; and integrating it with a SDL CASE tool. This leads to having a uniform modeling and advanced reasoning environment for software design. Experiments on designing switching software are reported. Presently, the CREATOR2/3 system together with an SDL CASE tool o ers 60-100 times the code expansion rate.