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 tools 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)