What Does Industry Require?

Abstract

Organizations using object technology (OT) for development of software products need to be confident that their way of working is likely to produce a good quality product — on time and within budget. Some framework is needed within which technical details of the analysis, design, and coding can proceed and within which managerial control of the project can be exerted. That framework is an 00 lifecycle methodology. This methodology should cover the whole lifecycle, should embody a general underlying philosophy regarding the degree of iteration necessary when using OT, and should provide management and technical techniques. It should, inter alia, delineate deliverables (type and timing), offer support for a hierarchy of abstraction levels (e.g., class, subsystem, pattern), ideally embody the notions of contracting (e.g., [60]), offer an overlay of complexity management techniques (e.g., layering, sheets, subsystems, selective visibility), and provide metrics for evaluating quality aspects of both product and process. Management techniques will focus on deliverables and quality; technical techniques will provide a means of creating the design and translating that into code. An 00 methodology also needs to supply assistance with library management for creating new reusable classes and for using existing reusable classes. The increasing sophistication of software development environmenalso means that most methodologies should have identifiable tool support, such as a drawing tool to support the notation embodied within the methodology.