Connectors for bridging mismatches between the components of a software engineering environment

Abstract

Software engineering environments (SEEs) are complex systems, for which configurability is an important requirement. Constructing SEEs out of existing tools is evidently desirable. During such a composition, mismatches between the data models of different tools will arise. The brute-force technique of hacking data translators into the implementation of individual tools has severe drawbacks regarding the modularity, maintainability and extensibility of the composed system. This paper proposes a novel technique for designing SEEs that uses explicit language constructs for bridging the mismatches in the data models, called dynamic view connectors. It shows how the separation of tool functionality from the concerns of bridging data-model mismatches improves the configurability and maintainability of an existing SEE.