Three Innovative Software Engineering Methodologies

Abstract

Software engineering has come to the stage where speed of development, level of correctness, interoperability, user friendliness, usefulness, and reusability in different projects are very important factors in determining the success of a software engineering venture. Equally important is the use of methodologies for software design. In just over six decades, we have seen the progress of software design from an amorphous set of informal methodologies to structured techniques, formal methodologies, and object-oriented methodologies. In the area of object-oriented methodologies (OOM), the unified modeling language (UML) has made a significant contribution in defining a set of methodologies that can be applied to any software engineering effort. This paper draws on the UML methodologies and proposes three methodologies that could add richness and additional flexibility to the software engineering experience. They are system topology charts, object/entity specification grid, and the extended operation specification. The system topology charts include an information topology chart (ITC) that presents the object types and/or information entities in the way they will be managed in the software system, and a user interface topology chart (UITC) that presents operations the way they will appear in the system. The object/entity specification grid (O/ESG) adopts the conventions of the UML class diagram, but expands it to include additional critical information that lead to better software construction. The extended operation specification (EOS) embraces the UML guidelines for the activity diagram, but is flexible enough to include other techniques such as pseudo-code, Warnier-Orr diagram, and collaboration diagram. It also allows for the specification of other critical information not covered in these standard techniques.