Application program interface design based on on-line processing types

The authors have been studying ways to configure APLICOT (application platform for integrated database and data communication), a common in-house application program (AP) development environment with the aim of simplifying the job flow of in-house online system building at NTT. The authors report the techniques used to design AP interfaces (APIs) in the APLICOT project and also include an appraisal of their usefulness. APLICOT breaks down all of the different kinds of online application processing at NTT into six major types based on the processing types of messages and files. APLICOT then provides a set of 54 API parts for each type to standardize AP development environments. This set minimizes the total development cost of AP and these API parts. APLICOT's purpose is to standardize AP development support systems while allowing flexibility in the number of required AP programmers and in their tasks.<>