Object-Oriented Programming Environments: Requirements and Approaches

The wide spread of object technology has strongly increased the requirements for quality and functionality of programming environments. In this paper we discuss the reasons for this and work out the concrete demands for browsing, editing and executing large objectoriented software systems. We consider how to meet these requirements with available technology, and what we can expect in the future. Much of our experience is based on the development and use of the C++ programming environment Sniff. Therefore, our discussion is focused on C++. Nevertheless, most of our conclusions are valid for other programming languages, too.