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This paper describes the Software Architect's Assistant, an automated visual tool for the design and construction of Regis distributed programs. Unlike conventional CASE tools and their supported methodologies, the Architect's Assistant supports a compositional approach to program development in which the software architecture plays a central role throughout the software life-cycle--from the early design stage through to system management and evolution.In its implementation, we have addressed some of the limitations of existing CASE tools, particularly in the degree of automated support offered to the human developer. Conscious effort has been made to maximise usability and efficiency, primarily by enhancing the level of automation and flexibility together with careful design of the user interface. Our objective is to provide a tool which automates all mundane clerical tasks, enforces program correctness and consistency and, at the same time, accommodates the individual working styles of its users.Although currently specific to the development of Regis programs, the Architect's Assistant embodies concepts and ideas which are applicable to CASE tools in general.
Requirements analysis has been recognized as one of the most critical and difficult tasks in software engineering. The need for tool support is essential. This paper reports some work done to provide such support for interpretation and validation of requirements specifications by animation.The Animator provides facilities for the selection and execution of a transaction to reflect the specified behaviour of a particular scenario specified in the requirements specification. Actions are described in terms of input-output mappings and/or functions with pattern matching. Simple rules can be specified to control the triggering of actions. In addition, facilities are provided to replay and interact with transactions. User interaction during animation includes the ability to change data values or role play selected actions as desired. A full graphical interface is supported.The approach has been tested by the provision of an Animator for the requirements analysis method CORE and an associated 'Analyst Workstation'. Animation has been tested on a numberof small examples and a major case study. This paper describes the Animator, justifies the approach taken and discusses experience and future work.KEY WORDS Requirements analysis Requirements specification Animation Tool support INTRODUCTION Requirements analysisRequirements analysis is one of the most critical tasks in software engineering. Unrecognized errors made early in the development process may have widespread repercussions in the later phases. As a consequence, the cost of correcting such errors is high.' Support for requirements analysis is therefore crucial.Requirements analysis consists of three interrelated activities : requirements elicitation, specification and validation. Elicitation is the process of collecting together, from the clients and users, all the facts relating to the required system. The user or client provides his view of the requirements, including both relevant and irrelevant information, and omitting other facts which are forgotten or deemed to be obvious for his application domain. The requirements analyst, who is not necessarily an expert in the particular domain, must try to organize this information into a form which helps to identify relevant and missing requirements, and copes with large amounts of complex information. Requirements analysis is not merely a specification of the system, but rather a process, whose end product is a specification. Since this process is complex
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