The Software Composition Workbench

The Software Composition Workbench project deals with the design and implementation of an integrated suite of software engineering tools based on the RESOLVE framework and discipline for component-based software engineering (see RSRG). Its goal is to support instructional activities, and eventually professional software engineers, by providing an environment that promotes a specific conceptual view of software and software construction. The workbench will support a convenient, structured, and organized way of building software systems and new components from existing components. One interesting instructional benefit that we expect to see is that the workbench should aid students in forming an appropriate conceptual view of software that mirrors the component-based approach used by all other engineering disciplines.

The project involves a combination of theoretical and applied activities, including:

• refining an appropriate model of software
• designing and evaluating alternative program notations
• designing, implementing, and evaluating user interfaces and interaction
• designing and implementing new general-purpose and domain-specific software components
• evaluating the effectiveness of the tools
.

Some of the tools we are developing as part of the workbench are:

• a catalog browser
• a Component Coupling Diagram (CCD) editor/browser
• an Instantiation Diagram (ID) editor
• a component (concept, realization header, realization body) editor
• a language-based code editor
• translators to compilable languages (e.g., C++)
.

Here is a link to the current SCW developer documentation.