Computer-Aided Software Engineering Tools - Coursework Example

Computer-Aided Software Engineering (CASE) tools Computer-Aided Software Engineering (CASE) tools Introduction This research paper will discuss the effectiveness of Computer-aided software engineering (CASE) tools in increasing the productivity of the software engineers. For this purpose, the author of the paper would review discussions and literature present in published material, to outline benefits of CASE tools in increasing software engineer’s productivity. CASE Tools Increase Productivity Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) tools are popular amongst researchers and scholars, for their ability to reduce the amount of efforts required to develop and maintain software. The major benefit of CASE tools is that, they allow Information Systems to run smoothly without being disturbed by overburden or too much information traffic. There has been a debate going on between experts of software engineering industry, whether these tools are beneficial for increasing productivity, or these benefits are just perceived delusions. The critics of CASE tools are of the view that the successful usage of CASE tools required extensive training and development to be provided to the software engineers. For this reason, this paper would present both views in detail. First of all, the author of this paper would focus on discussing how CASE tools would result an improvement in the productivity of the software engineers and hence affect the overall organizational performance (Mall, 2004). CASE tools are utilized by the developers to assist them on performing a number of activities, which might include: Developing specifications of the software Conducting a structured analysis of the details inputted Designing the logical structure of the program Carrying out the coding and decoding activity And reduce the costs to be incurred for software development Case tools are considered as beneficial in increasing organizational productivity, just by aligning the activities in the right direction and enhancing the performance of the developed software, for the sake of reducing the costs. This is because; CASE tools minimizes the number of human errors that might occur during development procedure. This is the reason that software developers view it as an analytical tool which replaces the human errors with automated process delivery to streamline all activities (Jarvenpaa et al., 1992). It is also important to notice here that each CASE tool has its own utilization in particular fields. For example, there are CASE tools for managing configurations of the software, tools for developing data models, tools for transforming data models, tools for transforming programs, tools for refactoring, tools for generating source codes and tools for reading and manipulating unified languages. By utilizing these tools, software engineers receive regular reports about the performance of each system, and analyze the reports in order to design tactics. These tactics are meant to organize the work flow and streamline the activities taking place in the development procedure. This aim is achieved by developing flow diagrams for data, diagrams for entity relationship and program specifications. Productivity is increased here as the CASE tools provides software engineers more time to focus on the performance ability of the software and how the software would fulfill the expectations of the clients (Salvendy, 2001). Another advantage of using CASE tools is that, it speed ups the process of software development by enabling the systems to use automated codes, develop records, structural scripts and class definitions in numerous programming language at a single time. On the other hand, CASE tools also generates database for database management for future reference to the system or software development. Due to this, software developers’ progress on eliminating the flaws in the program language. According to Khosravi (2012), “It is easier to find problems in the clear diagrams rather than the codes, so software engineers can work on the diagrams to design software and then create classes using CASE tools. Some case tools will modify the effect the design model when class codes are modified as well. So these tools are useful for all steps in a software development and speed up whole progress. Also as the codes are being generated by the tools, it reduces bugs in the basic levels such as class ADTs and database structure.” (Khosravi, 2012) Another advantage of using CASE tools is that, it allows testing of the design and debug tools of the software, usually during the testing phase. Another task that CASE tools might perform is to monitor the connection between different classes of data, locating and rectifying broken links in the software performance and task delivery and eliminating conflicts in different types of data. As it is evident that the process of creating abstract classes of data, it requires extensive use of time resource. Moreover, manual creation of abstract classes is full of mistakes and requires well structured coding. By using CASE tools, software engineers can make sure that the codes are written in an automated format and enhance the performance of the software. Once the designing stage and creation of class diagrams is completed, CASE tools take over from human hand and produce well organized codes for software developers and reduce the requirement of time frame (Connolly & Begg, 2005). As Case tools are also responsible for creating standard diagrams in order to provide access to the objects within the diagrams. The best feature of CASE tools is that, once an object is changed, it would provide the projected changes in all other objectives under different diagrams. Therefore; developers’ productivity would increase as the chances of mistakes in standard diagram development would be avoided. One form of CASE tools is that, they produce a graphical interface for the sake of enabling developers to design software virtually. In this manner, software developers avoid hectic step of developing coding first. Moreover, these graphical interfaces are efficient in a manner that it makes easier to identify and create data flow points and structure classes according to the specification of the developer. By doing this, CASE tools make it facilitating for the software developers to identify bugs in the developed system and prepare a structured program for debugging. Additionally, such a use of CASE tools results in increased efficiency in the performance of the system and saving of precious time resource. Another advantage of CASE tools with regards to increase in productivity is that, it allows documentation of system procedures in required format. For example, the system procedures can be recorded in PDF, Word or HTML format, whenever the developers want. CASE tools provide system developers with an open source of automated formats so that system design documentation can be automatically produced in the required shape. On the other hand, another function of CASE tools is to generate reports pertaining to impact of any change in the system design, matrix of system performance and diagrams of evaluation of different performing areas of the software. Lastly, CASE tools also have the ability to develop and print flow diagrams, highlight comment headers, providing cross references, develop surveys for codes and other beneficial reports directly by integrating into the source code (Khosravi, 2012). In modern times, when the requirement for software development is increasing day by day, the problems to this industry are also increasing (Connolly & Begg, 2005). Major problems might include overruns in the time schedule, overruns in the anticipated costs involved, development of sub-standard software and systems that do not even fulfill operational expectations. Majority of scholars and industry experts are of the view that problems in software emerges due to several reason, out of which few are: 1. Inability to define complete requirements of the system 2. Variation in the type of requirements that a software developer might present 3. Absence of definite software development methods 4. Implementation of improper logical design of the system 5. Insufficient room for testing the performance of the system (Jarvenpaa et al., 1992). As the above part of the research paper reviewed CASE tools for their usage as productivity enhancer in software development industry, the coming pages would consist of discussion pertaining to critics and weaknesses of CASE tools. Critics and Weaknesses of CASE Tools Majority of the critics of CASE tools view it as inefficient in standardization of protocols in the performance of software. That is; it becomes difficult for the software developers to create a link between case tools and different vendors. For example, a software developer asks one vendor for providing designing tools, whereas; asks another vendor to provide programming tool. In this manner, the standardized code structures of the software would be disturbed and might result in delivering consumed data classes. It also expensive to convert file formats which might result in overburden on financial resources. Moreover, in case the software developer decides on acquiring assistance from CASE tools up to a certain extent of the development process, it is necessary for him/her to acquire the services of one vendor only. This is necessary because; the developer might want to add more features to the software in the future, he would have the flexibility in the structure design of the system to adjust it according to the requirement of time (Connolly & Begg, 2005). Another misconception pertaining to CASE tools’ effectiveness is that, it reduces the requirement for financial capital of the developers. In contrast, the implication of CASE tools in software development phase is usually high, involving high start-up costs. Additionally, the payback time on the implication of CASE tools on software development procedures is long, which might create frustration amongst the developers at some point of time. The implication of CASE tools also reduces the speed of the development process, as implementation of CASE tool itself is a long process. This is because; the implication of CASE tools is a shift from traditional software development environment into a highly automated computer controlled environment. This is the reason, that critics suggest CASE tool implication for the first time should be planned after acquiring careful and close understanding of the systems (Mall, 2004). Due to complications in the use of CASE tools for software development, it is considered as being a time consuming process. Majority of the time is consumed in training staff to the use of CASE tools or accommodating the staff on different work areas according to the requirement of the system. Another weakness of CASE tools is that they possess a weak repository for controls of system tasks. Any failure which results from inadequate entrance to the control access would cause the system to report any security breach. The controls of the repository would be weak and will damage the work and design documents. In this way, system design would be confused and would damage the code modules in the repository (Connolly & Begg, 2005). The platform itself, which serves as the initial basis for software development is also very expensive to be built. Additionally, these initial platforms require excessive maintenance of data warehouse and information flow centers, which exhausts financial and human resource of an organization. Moreover, the use of CASE tools in software development requires accurate explanation to the users’ requirements from the system and understanding of their needs. For this reason, it becomes difficult for the software engineers to customize the software by means of CASE tools to improve the productivity of the overall system. The maintenance staff is required to be trained, which again requires extensive financial resources. The basic aim behind incurring these expenditures is to ensure that the software performs well and any flaws in the development process are avoided due to the use of CASE tools. But, the results retrieved with exhaustion of resources sometimes results in difficulties in usability of the system. Conclusion From the review of published literature n CASE tools and their usage in software development, it can be asserted that these tools enables software developers to enhance the performance of the system. CASE tools have the tendency to increase the productivity of the developed systems; for this reason it is necessary to make required expenditures on the course. It enables developers to generate standard codes, develop logical diagrams of data flow and direct developers towards accuracy in system development by develop projections of debugging processes. List of References Connolly, T. & Begg, C., 2005. Database Systems: A Practical Approach To Design, Implementation And Management. New Delhi: Pearson Education India. ISBN 978-81-317-2025-7 [Accessed 10 January 2013]. Jarvenpaa, S.L., Vessey, I. & Tractinsky, N., 1992. Evaluation of Vendor Products: CASE Tools as Methodology Companions. Communications of the ACM, 35(4), pp.90-105. [Accessed 10 January 2013]. Khosravi, M., 2012. CASE Tools. [Online] Available at: [Accessed 10 January 2013]. Mall, R., 2004. Fundamentals of software engineering. New Delhi: Prentice-Hall India. [Accessed 10 January 2013]. Salvendy, G., 2001. Handbook of Industrial Engineering: Technology and Operations Management. NJ: John Wiley. [Accessed 10 January 2013]. Read More