MOOSE: A Method Designed for Ease of Maintenance

The problem of change as manifested in perfective and adaptive maintenance is presented along with some of the qualities that software must possess in order to minimise the effects of change. These qualities can be provided by the Object Oriented paradigm. This paper describes the current work on a Method for Object Oriented Software Engineering (MOOSE) that has ease of maintenance and re-use as primary design objectives. A prototype CASE tool to support the method has also been developed: details and proposals for its re-engineered capabilities are given. No attempt is made to completely define the method, instead a general description of its features, particularly those pertinent to maintainability, is presented.