Software Design Support System

Most existing software design systems support the use of only a single design methodology. Our major thesis is that a good SDSS should support a wide variety of design methods and languages including structured design, object-oriented design, finite state machines, etc. It might seem that a multiparadigm SDSS would be expensive in both time and money to construct. However, we propose instead an extensible SDSS that directly implements only minimal database and graphical facilities be constructed. In particular, it should not directly implement any specific design methodology or set of methodologies. Instead, the SDSS should implement tools to facilitate language definition and analysis. We believe such a system could be rapidly developed and put into limited production use, with the experience gained used to refine and evolve the system over time.