An analysis of programming environments

Programming environments consist of those tools and techniques that are applied throughout the software life cycle. Recent interest in programming environments has existed in industry, government, and academia. This paper is a synopsis of five graduate software engineering course projects in which programming environments were analyzed. The basis for the course project was a general set of environment questions posed to the attendees of the National Bureau of Standards Programming Environment Workshop. This paper addresses environment settings and requirements for the settings. The impact of utilizing programming environments, evaluation criteria, and technology validation are discussed. Finally, the paper covers current programming environment technology and potential future directions.