Tool integration beyond Wasserman

Abstract

The typical development environment today consists of many specialized development tools, which are partially integrated, forming a complex tool landscape with partial integration. Traditional approaches for reasoning about tool integration are insufficient to measure the degree of integration and integration optimality in today's complex tool landscape. This paper presents a reference model that introduces dependencies between, and metrics for, integration aspects to overcome this problem. This model is used to conceive a method for reasoning about tool integration and identify improvements in an industrial case study. Based on this we are able to conclude that our reference model does not detract value from the principles that it is based on, instead it highlights improvements that were not well visible earlier. We conclude the paper by discussing open issues for our reference model, namely if it is suitable to use during the creation of new systems, if the used integration aspects can be subdivided further to support the analysis of secondary issues related to integration, difficulties related to the state dependency between the data and process aspects within the context of developing embedded systems and the analysis of non-functional requirements to support tool integration. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.