Computer aided system prototyping

The ability of various types of computer-aided prototyping environments to speed up prototyping and help the analysts formulate, understand, and communicate the properties of proposed systems to potential users of those systems, and to integrate smoothly with tools for optimizing and refining the prototype design into a production-quality software product, is examined. Comparisons of software prototyping with system prototyping and of throw-away with evolutionary prototyping are given. The technologies which support prototyping, i.e., prototyping languages, software reuse, designed interfaces, and decision support, are described.<>