Arcadia Papers: ABSTRACT


"The AdaPIC Tool Set: Supporting Interface Control and Analysis Throughout the Software Development Process", by Alexander L. Wolf, Lori A. Clarke, and Jack C. Wileden in IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 14(3), pages 250-263, March 1989.

Abstract

Despite the importance of describing and analyzing the relationships among a software system's components, most languages and development environments do not provide suitable support for these activities. While Ada and the various existing Ada environments offer some assistance, the capabilities they offer are inadequate for use in truly large and complex software development projects. To address these shortcomings, we are developing the AdaPIC toolset, which we envision as an important component of an Ada software development environment. The AdaPIC toolset is one particular instantiation, specifically adapted for use with Ada, of the more general collection of language features and analysis capabilities that constitute the PIC approach to describing and analyzing relationships among software system components. This toolset is being tailored to support an incremental approach to the interface control aspects of the software development process. Following a discussion of the interface control and incremental development concepts, this paper describes the AdaPIC toolset, concentrating on its analysis tools and support for incremental development and demonstrating how it contributes to the technology for developing large Ada software systems.


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Last modified: Mon Feb 27 11:24:26 1995