Project Details
Description
One of the main current research activities in Software engineering is concerned about modelling the development process of huge softwares in order to bring some help to the engineer to design and maintain an application.
In general, every design process is seen as rational application of transformation operators to one or more products (mainly specifications) in order to produce new products that satisfy to some given criteria. This modelling mainly allows a methodological guidance. Indeed, at each step of the process, the set of pertinent activities and types of products are proposed to the designer, without any other. This guidance may possibly be reinforced with some help.
Furthermore, this modelling allows to document the process with its history, ie with a representation of performed actvities. This history is itself the basis of maintenance activities. Two examples : a Replay function that allows, during a modification, to do (automatically or assisted) the same activities as during the design, and Reverse Engineering that allows to recover not only some technical and functional documentation of an application, but also a plausible history of its design.
The thesis aims at elaborating a general model of design processes, applying it to database engineering and implementing it in the DB-MAIN CASE tool. It will be done in four phases :
1. elaboration of a model, a method specification language and a history representation
2. evaluation of this model with the specification of classical methods and case studies
3. methodological recommandation proposals for the elaboration of design methods
4. development and integration of some methodological control functions in the DB-MAIN CASE tool; this includes an extension of the repository, the definition of the interface of the methodological functions, the development of the methodological engine and the development of an history processor (analysis, replay,...).
In general, every design process is seen as rational application of transformation operators to one or more products (mainly specifications) in order to produce new products that satisfy to some given criteria. This modelling mainly allows a methodological guidance. Indeed, at each step of the process, the set of pertinent activities and types of products are proposed to the designer, without any other. This guidance may possibly be reinforced with some help.
Furthermore, this modelling allows to document the process with its history, ie with a representation of performed actvities. This history is itself the basis of maintenance activities. Two examples : a Replay function that allows, during a modification, to do (automatically or assisted) the same activities as during the design, and Reverse Engineering that allows to recover not only some technical and functional documentation of an application, but also a plausible history of its design.
The thesis aims at elaborating a general model of design processes, applying it to database engineering and implementing it in the DB-MAIN CASE tool. It will be done in four phases :
1. elaboration of a model, a method specification language and a history representation
2. evaluation of this model with the specification of classical methods and case studies
3. methodological recommandation proposals for the elaboration of design methods
4. development and integration of some methodological control functions in the DB-MAIN CASE tool; this includes an extension of the repository, the definition of the interface of the methodological functions, the development of the methodological engine and the development of an history processor (analysis, replay,...).
| Acronym | Thèse |
|---|---|
| Status | Finished |
| Effective start/end date | 31/08/95 → 15/05/03 |
Keywords
- database
- meta-CASE
- database engineering
- process modelling
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