CASE tools
1980s…
Upper CASE tools: support for the analysis and design
Lower CASE tools: support for construction and maintenance
Nowadays…
Integrated CASE tools:
Offer extensive life cycle coverage
CASE tools: Automated Diagram
Support
Checks for syntactic correctness
Data dictionary support
Checks for consistency and completeness
Navigation to linked diagrams
Layering
Requirements traceability
Automatic report generation
System simulation
Performance analysis
CASE tools: Software
construction and maintenance
Code generators
…Generate code from the design model…
Think of the advantages!
…may also generate database schemata…
Maintenance tools
Reverse Engineering
Analysis of program code
CASE tools: Advantages
Help standardization of notations and diagrams
Help communication between development team members
Automatically check the quality of the A&D models
Reduction of time and effort
Enhance reuse of models or models’ components
CASE tools: Disadvantages
• Limitations in flexibility of documentation
• May lead to restriction to the tool’s capabilities
• Major danger: completeness and syntactic correctness
does NOT mean compliance with requirements
• Costs associated with the use of the tool: purchase +
training
UML: History and
Brief Summary (1/2)
Adoption of the OO paradigm … problematic
Emergence of UML as a methods’ unification approach
UML: An OMG standard since 1997…
Under way to become an ISO standard!
UML notation: a melding of graphical notations
from various sources.
+ other concepts…
UML: History and
Brief Summary (2/2)
UML: A method or a notation?
Modeling method: techniques + guidelines + notations
roadmap for the development of a model
Primarily a notation
However, there are attempts to describe OO methods
or methodological frameworks that would be able to employ UML.
1. The Rational Unified Process
2. The Object-oriented Process, Environment and Notation (OPEN)
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