Left Case – a Free Software Component-based Case Tool for Software Engineering Practice Support

1 Francisco J. García, University of Salamanca, Computer Science Department, Faculty of Sciences, Salamanca, 37008, Spain [email protected] 2 Iván Álvarez, University of Salamanca, Computer Science Department, Faculty of Sciences, Salamanca, 37008, Spain [email protected] Abstract CASE tools are an important topic in the curriculum of a future software engineer because they automate the software creation process across the different software life cycle stages, looking for a more systematic software development process and also an increase of software quality. In this work we present Left CASE, a free software CASE Tool developed in the Computer Science Department at the University of Salamanca (Spain). This tool is a component-based framework that covers the software modeling techniques that are explained in the Computer Science studies at our University. Both structured and object-oriented modeling techniques are presented in our curriculum. The modeling techniques that we use are: Data Flow Diagrams, Entity Relationship Diagrams, UML Use CASE Diagrams, UML Class Diagrams, UML Interaction Diagrams and UML States Diagrams.