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EPFC-Based Methodology-Engineering Method and Environment for Enhancing the Automatic Assembly of Method Fragments

Sepehri Khameneh, Ali | 2013

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  1. Type of Document: M.Sc. Thesis
  2. Language: Farsi
  3. Document No: 45037 (19)
  4. University: Sharif University of Technology
  5. Department: Computer Engineering
  6. Advisor(s): Ramsin, Raman
  7. Abstract:
  8. Selection of development methodologies according to the specifications of software development projects continues to be an important challenge for the software industry. Despite the growth of software methodologies, this problem has not been fully resolved yet. Software engineers have realized, however, that there is no general-purpose methodology which is suitable for all situations. Therefore, the necessity of Situational Method Engineering (SME) has become apparent, and engineers have started to use different methods for engineering software processes to fit the project situation at hand. Assembly-based, Extension-based and Paradigm-based approaches are the SME methods prevalently used for this purpose.Since the SME process is complex, tool support has become essential, and in order to automate the process, Computer-Aided Method Engineering (CAME) environments have been created. However, the CAME environments currently available do not fully support all the approaches and stages of method engineering. In the assembly-based approach, which is the most commonly used SME method, suitable methodology fragments are retrieved from a repository and assembled to form the target methodology. EPFC (Eclipse Process Framework Composer) is the leading assembly-based SME tool for defining, storing, retrieving and assembling method fragments. The final assembly of the method fragments is a very important process in assembly-based SME, but it has not been satisfactorily automated yet.The main objective of this project is to propose an EPFC-based SME method and environment to enhance the automatic assembly of method fragments. Research at the ME-Lab has previously focused on automating the fragment retrieval process in the EPFC environment; this project is a continuation of the previous work aiming at providing full coverage of the assembly-based SME lifecycle in EPFC.To this aim, we have first investigated existing fragment assembly approaches and environments. After conducting an analytical survey of existing CAME environments, we have studied the different methods available for fragment and component specification. We have recognized the potential of component specification methods (as used in Component-Based Development–CBD) for use in method-fragment specification. After analyzing various approaches, we have proposed a method to specify and assemble method fragments by adapting CBD methods. The resulting method has been implemented as a plugin to the EPFC environment. The validity of the proposed method and environment has been assessed in a case study and through the application of specialized evaluation criteria
  9. Keywords:
  10. Methodology Engineering ; Situational Method Engineering ; Method Fragments Assembly ; Eclipse Process Framework Composer (EPFC)Tool ; Computer Aided Methodology Engineering

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