Research Issues in Systems Analysis and Design, Databases and Software Development phần 7 ppt

Method Chunks to Federate Development Processes 

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involvement and time pressures are examples of discriminant factors (van

Slooten & Hodes, 1996) that are helpful to qualify the method-engineering

knowledge embedded into a method chunk. Virtual user involvement and

real user involvement are examples of specialization of the level-of-user-in￾volvement factor. Indeed, we propose three perspectives to classify criteria

in a kind of and-or tree form. The three perspectives we provide to classify

criteria are:

• The basic refinement relationship

• The refinement into more specific and classified criteria

• The refinement into more specific and exclusive criteria

The relationship to refine criteria into more specific and classified criteria

allows us to specify an order among the nodes sharing the same direct father

node. The level of expertise of the method user targeted by the method chunk

under qualification is another example of meaningful criteria. Different levels

of expertise may be distinguished: expert method users, medium method us￾ers, and beginner method users. If a method user searches for method chunks

satisfying the expert method users’ criteria and no chunks are found, maybe

he or she would be interested in looking for method chunks dedicated to me￾dium method users, but not to method chunks dedicated to beginner method

users, which would seem unsuitable. Ranking starts from 1 to n (one by one);

n is the number of nodes sharing the same direct father node. Therefore, we

integrated this kind of refinement relationship into our reuse-frame structure.

The refinement into nodes to specify more specific and classified criteria may

be helpful when retrieving method chunks to find method chunks qualified

by criteria classified as previous or next to the criteria of the method chunk

or of the user situation under consideration.

The refinement into nodes to specify exclusive criteria prevents method users

from qualifying method chunks or user needs through incompatible criteria.

High time pressure and low time pressure are examples of exclusive refine￾ments of the time-pressure factor introduced previously.

The refinement into nodes to specify more specific criteria may be helpful

when retrieving method chunks to find method chunks qualified by criteria

more or less generic than the criteria of the method chunk or of the user

situation under consideration.

The different kinds of relationships are summarized in Figure 4.

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In the reuse frame, nodes close to the root node deal with general criteria

while nodes close to leaf nodes (including leaf nodes) deal with precise

criteria. A criterion is fully defined as a path from the root node to a node n

of the reuse frame. If n is not a leaf node, then it should not have exclusive

relationships starting from it, otherwise one of the ending nodes of the ex￾clusive relationships has to be chosen as n. Inclusion between criteria has

been defined to state when a criterion is more generic or more specific than

another one. A precedence relationship has also been defined to state when

a criterion is previous to or next to another one. The compatibility between

criteria allows one to specify when criteria may be part of the same user

situation or reuse context.

Inclusion: A criterion c1 is included in a criterion c2 if the path from the

root node to c1 is a subpath of the path from the root node to c2. A cri￾terion c1 includes a criterion c2 if the path from the root node to c2 is a

subpath of the path from the root node to c1.

In Figure 4, N8 includes N4.

Precedence: A criterion c1 is previous to criterion c2 if they have the same

direct father node and the classification rank of c1 is inferior to the clas￾sification rank of c2. c1 is next to c2 if c1 and c2 have the same direct

father node and the classification rank of c2 is inferior to the classification

rank of c1.

Figure 4. Reuse-frame refinement relationships