Software Development Environments

TLDR: Issues relevant to the transition of promising technologies and projects to be undertaken by the Software Engineering Institute to address those issues are discussed.

Abstract: : The growing demand for reliable large-scale software systems cannot be met without advances in software development environments. Although promising technologies are emerging, a number of issues must be addressed to ensure the timely transition of those technologies to practice. This paper discusses issues relevant to the transition of such technologies and projects to be undertaken by the Software Engineering Institute to address those issues. The SEI'S primary mission is the transition of modern software engineering methods to practice. Software engineering environments represent a good means to support that end. They provide the means both to integrate tools and to provide a uniform conceptual framework for the user. While from one point of view an environment can enforce uniform practices, it also provides the means to maintain the rich information base that most likely will be required to support reusability of requirements and designs. The SEI's role with respect to environments is not to build a specific environment, but to help explore the validity of new concepts by building prototypes, to stimulate the research community to attack critical problems, and to refine the requirements for the next generation of large-scale environments.