The use of dynamic models in the development of information systems is regarded by many researchers as a promising issue in design support. Modelling the dynamics of information systems is likely to improve the quality and the performance of the design products. Dynamic modelling as a new approach for dynamic analysis of problems within an existing situation, and design and evaluation of different solution strategies may overcome many difficulties in the design process.
Front Cover 1
Dynamic Modelling of Information Systems 4
Copyright Page 5
Table of Contents 8
PREFACE 6
CHAPTER 1. INCLUDING DYNAMIC MODELLING INTO THE OBJECT-ORIENTED DESIGN 10
1 INTRODUCTION 10
2 OBJECT-ORIENTED APPROACH TO REQUIREMENTS AND SOFTWARE MODELLING 11
3 INCLUSION OF DYNAMICS ON REQUIREMENTS LEVEL 12
4 INCLUSION OF DYNAMICS ON DESIGN LEVEL 16
5 THE TRANSFORMATION FROM DORL TO DODL 24
6 FUTURE WORK 25
7 EXAMPLE 26
References 43
CHAPTER 2. A COMMUNICATION ORIENTED APPROACH TO CONCEPTUAL SYSTEMS MODELLING 46
1 INTRODUCTION 46
2 COMMUNICATION 49
3 THE SMART AUTOMATON 52
4 THE DYNAMICS PERSPECTIVE 55
5 THE STRUCTURE PERSPECTIVE 58
6 AN EXAMPLE 62
7 EVALUATION AND CONCLUSIONS 66
References 68
CHAPTER 3. USING MODELING AND SIMULATION IN THE ANALYSIS AND DESIGN OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS 70
1 INTRODUCTION 70
2 THE EVOLUTION OF STRUCTURED METHODOLOGIES 72
3 DYNAMIC MODELING ENHANCEMENTS TO SSAD: THE DSADE METHODOLOGY 73
4 ENHANCEMENTS TO DATA FLOW DIAGRAMMING TECHNIQUES 76
5 OBJECTIVE OUTCOME MEASURES FOR DYNAMIC EVALUATION MODELS 80
6 A DYNAMIC SIMULATION MODEL OF AN INFORMATION SYSTEM 81
7 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 94
References 96
CHAPTER 4. DYNAMIC MODELLING: AN EXAMPLE OF AN EVENT-DRIVEN APPROACH 98
1 INTRODUCTION 99
2 THE VIEW CONCERNING AN IS IN RELATION TO THE CONTENTS AND SCOPE OF DESIGN METHODS 99
3 ASPECTS OF THE OVERALL VIEW REGARDING THE ROLE OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS 103
4 BASIC CONCEPTS USED TO MAKE A DYNAMIC MODEL OF THE OS 109
5 ABOUT THE MODELLING PROCESS 115
6 COMPARISON OF THE PROPOSED APPROACH WITH OTHER APPROACHES 121
References 126
Acknowledgments 128
CHAPTER 5. USING AN OBJECT-ORIENTED DIAGRAM TECHNIQUE FOR THE DESIGN OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS 130
1 INTRODUCTION 131
2 OBJECT DIAGRAMS 132
3 BEHAVIOUR DIAGRAMS 136
4 THE PREDICATE/TRANSITION NET SEMANTICS OF OBJECT/BEHAVIOR DIAGRAMS 154
5 CONCLUSION 170
References 170
Acknowledgement 173
CHAPTER 6. AN OBJECT-ORIENTED RULE-BASED APPROACH TO THE DYNAMIC MODELLING OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS 174
1 INTRODUCTION 175
2 AN OBJECT-ORIENTED FRAMEWORK: OBJECTS AND OPERATIONS 178
3 SPECIFICATION OF BEHAVIOUR IN TERMS OF RULES 184
4 GRAPHICAL NOTATION 188
5 CONCLUSIONS 190
References 191
Acknowledgements 195
APPENDIX A: DESCRIPTION OF A WHOLESALER COMPANY 196
CHAPTER 7. INTERACTIVE MODELLING FOR INFORMATION SYSTEMS DESIGN:
198
1 INTRODUCTION 199
2 MOSAIC, A MODELLING TOOLBOX 207
3 APPLYING THE MOSAIC CONCEPTS TO SUPPORT CONCEPTUALIZATION 215
4 CONCLUSIONS AND FURTHER WORK 221
References 222
Acknowledgements 225
APPENDIX A: SYNTAX OF THE HISIM LANGUAGE 227
APPENDIX B: EXAMPLE OF HISIM CODE 232
CHAPTER 8. A FORMAL FRAMEWORK FOR DYNAMIC MODELLING OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS 236
1 INTRODUCTION 236
2 OUTLINE OF EXSPECT 238
3 APPLICATION OF EXSPECT 241
4 CONCLUSIONS 244
References 244
Acknowledgements 245
CHAPTER 9. FIRST AND SECOND ORDER DYNAMICS IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS 246
1 INTRODUCTION 246
2 THE ISB - ISN FRAMEWORK 249
3 STRUCTURE AND FIRST ORDER DYNAMICS IN ISN REPRESENTATIONS 251
4 INTEGRATION OF ISN REPRESENTATIONS 254
5 TOWARDS CASE TOOLS SUPPORTING SECOND ORDER DYNAMICS 259
6 CONCLUSION 262
References 262
CHAPTER 10. ON TRIGGERS AND HIERARCHY IN CONCEPTUAL MODELLING 266
1 INTRODUCTION 266
2 A BRIEF REVIEW OF THE EXISTING APPROACHES 267
3 IMPROVEMENT OF DFD 269
4 A FRAMEWORK FOR A TOOL 275
5 IMPLEMENTATION ISSUES 276
6 CONCLUSION 276
References 277
Acknowledgement 277
CHAPTER 11. MODELLING LOGISTIC SYSTEMS WITH EXSPECT 278
1 INTRODUCTION 278
2 EXSPECT 280
3 MODELLING LOGISTIC SYSTEMS 284
4 EXAMPLES 286
5 CONCLUDING REMARKS 295
References 295
CHAPTER 12. EXPERIENCES WITH RULE-BASED DYNAMIC MODELLING 298
1 INTRODUCTION 298
2 MAJOR STAGES OF THE DEVELOPMENT METHOD 300
3 BASIC CONCEPTS AND TECHNIQUES 301
4 DEVELOPMENT METHOD 305
5 EXPERIENCES 307
6 CONCLUSIONS 309
References 309
Acknowledgements 310
CHAPTER 13. DYNAMIC MODELLING FOR ANALYSIS AND DESIGN OF OFFICE SYSTEMS 312
1 INTRODUCTION 312
2 INFORMATION SYSTEMS 313
3 INFORMATION SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT 315
4 VIEW ON ORGANIZATIONS 316
5 DYNAMIC MODELLING 320
6 MODELLING SUPPORT 321
7 EXPERIENCES 324
8 CONCLUSIONS 328
References 328
Acknowledgements 330
CHAPTER 14. THE APPLICATION OF PARALLELISM IN COMMERCIAL DYNAMIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS: THE FORTH-CLYDE PROJECT 332
1 INTRODUCTION 333
2 BACKGROUND 334
3 LIMITATIONS OF THE METHODOLOGY SET 335
4 DYNAMIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS 336
5 ANALYSIS OF PARALLEL PROCESSES 337
6 EPISODES 338
7 COMMERCIAL DYNAMIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS 339
8 CONCLUSION 341
References 342
Acknowledgements 343
CHAPTER
344
1 INTRODUCTION 344
2 PROTOTYPING 348
3 CONCEPTUAL MODELS 355
4 MODELING 359
5 THE DESIGN PROCESS AS MODELING 364
6 CONCLUSIONS 366
References 366
Acknowledgments 368
INCLUDING DYNAMIC MODELLING INTO THE OBJECT-ORIENTED DESIGN
Hannelore Frank, Digital Equipment GmbH, CEC Karlsruhe
Wolfgang Gerteis, University of Karlsruhe, Institute for Telematics
Abstract
Development and integration of distributed application software is still a complex task regardless of the actual type of application. The DOCASE project is introducing an architecture for a development support environment that is based on common understanding of the development data representation. To facilitate this strategy, two representation languages are developed to cover the needs during the requirements and the design phases. Object-orientation and modelling of dynamic behaviour have been emphasized and transformation from the requirements representation to the design representation is included.This paper introduces both languages and the transformation strategy and provides an example.
Keywords
Requirements engineering
object-oriented design
distributed applications
language
1 INTRODUCTION
The demand for ever higher integration of application software into computer integrated manufacturing systems, distributed office automation systems, enterprise-wide information management systems etc. cannot sufficiently be met today, as no adequate concepts for development and integration of distributed application software are available.
To face this problem we believe that a synthesis of three large areas of computer science is necessary: distributed programming, software engineering, and object-oriented techniques.
The DOCASE project (distribution and objects in computer aided software engineering) intends to show the way towards environments, tools and languages appropriate for the development of distributed applications (1, 2).
Object-oriented languages (3, 4) have proved to help managing complexity, a major problem of distributed applications. The very few existing approaches to distributed object-oriented programming have proved that a number of helpful concepts in distributed programming can be easily introduced using the object paradigm (e.g., transparency of the underlying network structure). To support the design a language covering the range from high level, incompletely specified early development phases to low level, detailed description of software, has to be provided. A central goal to DOCASE is to include modelling of application dynamics and animation of the model into such a language. The seamless path from early to late phases and the ease of maintenance make this approach very attractive.
This paper introduces an approach to use object-orientation to model requirements in the DORL (DOCASE Requirements Language) and software in the DODL (DOCASE Design Language) with adjusted concepts for the modelling of dynamics of the application system and tool supported transformation from DORL to DODL.
2 OBJECT-ORIENTED APPROACH TO REQUIREMENTS AND SOFTWARE MODELLING
The life-cycle of the development of an application starts with the analysis of the application domain and the gathering of the requirements. In this phase it is necessary to describe a model of the real world and build the picture of the new solutions within this model. The view we have of the real world is oriented towards objects, their looks and feels and their behaviour, so that it seems natural to use the object-oriented approach to build the real-world model.
The application view of objects is oriented towards the elements in the application domain. Those elements have static properties, their ‘looks and feels’, and dynamic properties, their behaviour. As in the object-oriented approach those properties can be divided into properties important to the outside and those only important within an object. A major difference with the purely object-oriented approach we find in the usage of typing and instantiation. Describing a real-world model the tendency is to describe an instance when collecting properties of an element and a type when describing the use of a number of elements of a kind. It is important to recognize this difference and to include this into the language supporting requirements modelling.
When using the object-oriented approach the requirements objects will represent environmental objects plus the objects of the system that are visible to the environment. The description will give information on the environment and on the interface of the system to the environment.
When stepping from the real-world model to the software model the object structure of the requirements builds the framework of the system. The software model evolves from this framework.
3 INCLUSION OF DYNAMICS ON REQUIREMENTS LEVEL
Considering the application view to objects, the need makes itself felt for an input model a requirements language has to support. The following section gives an overview of the DORL, the DOCASE Requirements Language. A requirements model described in DORL will be transformed into a framework for the software model using DODL (DOCASE Design Language) constructs as output.
The DORL has to deal with representation of application objects and their behaviour. To solve this, it is useful to divide the description into parts of static information, Entity Elements, and dynamic information, Action Elements, similar to (5).
The DORL is represented by a hierarchy of description elements that uses the object-oriented typing properties (figure 1). The basic description element is the Requirements Element providing the basic description structures. Refining the description leads to either a static element description or a description of dynamics. So the subtypes Entity Element and Action Element provide the necessary description elements for this distinction. The Entity Element again has two subtypes that provide a more distinct definition of the static element, the Area Element and the Simple Element.
Figure 1 The hierarchy of description elements of DORL
Following is an overview of the elements in the Model:
3.1 DORL structure
Apart from the separation of the static and dynamic descriptions the model should refrain from introducing too many separate sections where the information could be put. So the main section of the descriptions of elements has to be the verbal description.
To support later introduction of traceability the verbal description can include labels for statements that are used to place pointers to the text throughout the refinement of the Requirements Specification and the Software Design.
3.1.1 Requirements element
This Element provides the frame for the verbal description of an Entity Element and an Action Element by offering a section to write information in text, plus a section to identify information statements as specific (numbered) requirements. Those requirements can be used to refer to more formal descriptions to, while refining the specification.
The Requirements Element also offers statements for explicitly specifying types with instance information and subtyping structures (figure 2). The default though is instance.
Figure 2 Template of the Requirements Element
3.1.2 Entity element
The basic description element for static object information is the Entity Element. This element is explaining the ‘looks and feels’ of an object. Entity Elements can be specified in greater detail by using formal statements that will define the element as an Area or Simple Element.
As seen in figure 3 the Entity Element provides sections to state names and information on action triggering events the object reacts to and/or the object produces. Triggering events could be the call of an operation, an external signal or interrupt or other asynchronous events within the system. At the time of specifying the application it is often impossible to decide of what type a triggering event is. Therefore, they are all regarded as events in this phase.
Figure 3 Template of the Entity Element
It is also possible to describe different states of the object, name related objects, and specify interface operations. These sections are all in a formal format but allow to reference requirement statements in the verbal description.
The subtype Simple Element is used to further refine the Entity Element by adding information about internal structure and/or giving more details on private or public operation structures. The Area Element allows to group elements that are related in any application oriented means, such as an office containing different furniture elements or a team built of team members. It is subtype to Entity Element, because it is using all the syntax elements an entity contains but is not to be seen as a further refinement of an actual Entity Element.
3.1.3 Action...
Erscheint lt. Verlag | 28.6.2014 |
---|---|
Sprache | englisch |
Themenwelt | Mathematik / Informatik ► Informatik ► Datenbanken |
Informatik ► Office Programme ► Outlook | |
Informatik ► Software Entwicklung ► User Interfaces (HCI) | |
ISBN-10 | 1-4832-9484-6 / 1483294846 |
ISBN-13 | 978-1-4832-9484-1 / 9781483294841 |
Haben Sie eine Frage zum Produkt? |
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