Properties of stereotypes from the perspective of their role in designs

Abstract

Stereotypes in object-oriented software development can be perceived in various ways and they can be used for various purposes. As a consequence of these variations, assessing quality of stereotypes needs to be purpose-specific. In this paper we identify eight types of stereotypes and provide a set of criteria for assessing quality of stereotypes. The criteria for each type are formed by a set of properties that characterizes its stereotypes. The identified types are based on the purpose of each stereotype (its role in designs) and its expressiveness. We identified the types of stereotypes and their properties in an empirical way by investigating stereotypes from UML profiles used in industrial software development. The properties are intended to be used in our further research for developing guidelines for creating and using stereotypes in a more efficient way. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.