Unanticipated integration of development tools using the classification model

Abstract

The increasing complexity of software development spawns lots of specialised tools to edit code, employ UML schemes, integrate documentation, and so on. The problem is that the tool builders themselves are responsible for making their tools interoperable with other tools or development environments. Because they cannot anticipate all other tools they can integrate with, a lot of tools cannot co-operate. This paper introduces the classification model, a lightweight integration medium that enables unrelated tools that were not meant to be integrated to cooperate easily. Moreover, the tool integration is done by a tool integrator, and not by the tool builder. To validate this claim, we show how to integrate several third-party tools using the classification model, and how it forms the foundation for the StarBrowser, a Smalltalk browser integrating different tools.