A conceptual framework for software development

  • Authors:

  • Spiros Mancoridis;Richard C. Holt;David A. Penny

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto;Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto;Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto

  • Venue:
  • CSC '93 Proceedings of the 1993 ACM conference on Computer science
  • Year:
  • 1993

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Abstract

Large scale software development is an intrinsically difficult task. Developers use a set of specialized tools to alleviate some of this difficulty. The problem is that most of these tools are not integrated and do little to help developers and managers maintain an overall view of the development by organizing the software entities, created by tools, in a consistent fashion.Our solution, called the Software Landscape, provides developers with a conceptual framework of integrated tools while providing a metaphor for managing the complexities of large-scale software development.The Software Landscape is a metaphor of a country-side viewed from above in which each major entity, such as a software project, appears as a large plot of land, and each minor entity, such as a source C module, is contained within a plot. Plots can be libraries of reusable software as well as ongoing developments.A Software Landscape can be used as a mechanism that allows the developer to navigate around the entities created during the software development process, much the way a flight simulator allows one to “fly” and optionally to dive down to entities of interest. During this flight, and controls their level of visible detail. This model is constructive, allowing the developer to manipulate, as well as view, the entities of the Landscape.