On designing intelligent hypertext systems for information management in software engineering

  • Authors:

  • Pankaj K. Garg;Walt Scacchi

  • Affiliations:

  • Computer Science Department, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA;Computer Science Department, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA

  • Venue:
  • HYPERTEXT '87 Proceedings of the ACM conference on Hypertext
  • Year:
  • 1987

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Abstract

Information management in large scale software engineering is a challenging problem. Hypertext systems are best suited for this purpose because of the diversity in information types that is permitted in the nodes of a hypertext. The integration of a hypertext system with software engineering tools results in a software hypertext system. We describe the design of such a system called DIF. Based on our experiences in using DIF, we recognized the need and the potential for developing a hypertext system that could utilize knowledge about its users and their software tasks and products. Such a system might then be able to act as an active participant in the software process, rather than being just a passive, albeit useful storage facility. As such, we define an Intelligent Software Hypertext System (I-SHYS1) as a software hypertext system which is knowledgeable about its environment and can use such knowledge to assist in the software process. This knowledge is partly embedded in the design of an I-SHYS (in terms of the 'agents' that I-SHYS supports) and partly defined during the use of I-SHYS (in terms of tasks that agents perform). We present a framework GOT defining and organizing this knowledge, describe potential uses of such knowledge, identify limits of our approach, and suggest methods for circumventing them.