Elif Demirörs

Languages for the specification of software

Abstract A variety of specification languages exist that support one or more phases of software development. This article emphasizes languages that support the functional phase, i.e., languages that can be used to define the observable behavior of a system. The languages surveyed include Z, Prolog, SF, Clear, Larch, PAISLey, Spec, CSP, SEGRAS and BagL. The article divides the languages into four major categories based on the way the language specifies the external behavior of the system and on the ability of the language to specify concurrent systems. Each language section includes a discussion of the constructs of the language, a specification of a problem in the language, and an evaluation of the language. The article is intended to acquaint the reader with a wide range of functional specification languages.

Software Process Improvement in a Small Organization: Difficulties and Suggestions

Applying the widely accepted process improvement models, CMM and ISO 9001, to small software organizations has been a challenge for the software industry. In this paper, we summarize the difficulties that await small organizations and provide suggestions to resolve these difficulties based on an ongoing software process improvement initiative. We also generalize our action plan as a process improvement model for small software organizations.

Tailoring ISO/IEC 12207 for instructional software development

The authors describe their experiences in tailoring ISO/IEC 12207 for instructional software development. The project was initiated by a large government agency, and the process defined is to be followed by its suppliers during a typical software development contract. The process is targeted especially to small software development companies and provides guidance on what to do with respect to the customers expectations.

The role of teamwork in software development: Microsoft case study

Software development is a complex activity that requires a group of individuals working effectively as a team. Studies have shown that the performance of an effective team exceeds that of individuals acting independently. However, achieving effectiveness is a challenging task that needs investment and commitment. In this paper, we investigate the characteristics that differentiate effective teams from all others. To observe these characteristics within real software teams, we have chosen the Microsoft company as a case study and have analyzed Microsofts teams with respect to the characteristics that we define.

Managing instructional software acquisition

Managing acquisition and development efforts of contracted software is hard work for many organisations which require high-quality products to be produced. Mature supplier processes best work with mature acquisition processes which are able to appropriately plan, track and evaluate the work of the supplier. However, acquirer organisations might not always be that mature, so selecting and managing the best-fit suppliers becomes rather difficult. This paper introduces a study performed to overcome this difficulty for the Ministry of National Education (MONE) of Turkey. The first phase of the study includes defining the evaluation criteria for pre-qualification of software development companies, and the second phase includes defining the basic instructional software development process as well as the standards for the deliverables of the process. The paper also identifies the effort required by the Ministry for evaluating and managing the pre-qualification and development work in practice. Copyright

Software prototyping with MicroSTEP

The software evolution approach is becoming an alternative to the traditional phased refinement approach. MicroSTEP is a CASE tool that supports software evolution and prototyping as a methodology of this approach. The authors present their experiences in the context of software prototyping using MicroSTEP over a two year period.<<ETX>>

An alternative software development model supporting software evolution

Producing high quality software within a budget and schedule is still a problem. In order to increase the productivity and reliability the development methodology should concentrate on requirements specifications and design phases and support an incremental development process. This paper discusses a software design environment for realizing such a methodology. The integrated software design environment consists of a number of tools integrated for capturing, presenting and exercising software design information. A design representation language which provides high level constructs for encoding design knowledge is introduced into the environment as a uniform basis for integrating different phases of the development process. This paper includes a detailed analysis of the structure of the software design environment and its language as well as its prototype that has been built. A design example is also given to demonstrate the behavior of the prototype.<<ETX>>

A distributed tool for commitment specification and management

The need for specifying and managing commitments is supported by many elements in software development, such as project plans tracking systems, and process reviews. Commitment structure in organizations are so large, distributed, and complex that it can be coped with only via appropriate environments and tools. This paper proposes a distributed tool with its notation for commitment specification and management. Distributed Commitment Management Tool (DCMT) enables every single software developer to specify her commitments while modelling her own process in cooperation with others, and to manage her commitments based on the knowledge obtained via this modelling. The findings of the DCMT constitute valuable information not only for detecting and resolving unmet commitments and also for providing basic project management items, such as work breakdown structure, to-do-lists, and expect lists.

Process-product unification in a decentralized environment: a status report

Process-product unification and decentralization when considered together reflect the actual behavior of software development organizations. These two concepts enable team members to switch between process and product activities easily, and empower them to take process definition, enactment and monitoring responsibility. We investigate the requirements of software development techniques and tools that support unification and decentralization. Our focus is on defining a modeling notation that enables developers to encode both product and process related information, using a single representation that captures all the knowledge related to a specific software project.

Software development with transformable components

A software development environment for describing and utilizing domain specific abstraction mechanisms is described. DARMS (Design Abstract Representation and Manipulation Shell) is a prototype environment which has been developed over the past three years.<<ETX>>