Computer-aided software engineering

Software reuse has been looked upon in recent years as a promising mechanism for achieving increased levels of software quality and productivity within an organization. A form of software reuse which has been gaining in popularity is the use of design patterns. Design patterns are a higher level of abstraction than source code and are proving to be a valuable resource for both software developers and new hires within a company. This thesis develops the idea of applying design patterns to the Computer Aided Design (CAD) software development environment. The benefits and costs associated with implementing a software reuse strategy are explained and the reasoning for developing design patterns is given. Design patterns are then described in detail and a potential method for applying design patterns within the CAD environment is demonstrated through the development of a CAD design pattern catalog.

Due to the relative youth of the computer-aided software engineering (CASE) market and the lack of standards, evaluation of CASE tools is a difficult problem. This problem is made more difficult by the fact that no single CASE tool is able to satisfy the needs of all potential users. In addition, an incorrect choice is expensive in terms of money and time invested. In this thesis, the literature is surveyed and synthesized to produce procedures and criteria to be used in the evaluation and selection of CASE tools intended for the analysis and design phases of the software development life cycle.