Coordinated atomic actions in modelling object cooperation

The approach described in this paper makes use of Coordinated Atomic Actions (CA actions)-a structural design mechanism, for representing the cooperation between objects, at different stages of the software development. The original concept of a CA action has been expanded for accommodating the modelling needs of the initial stages of software development. One of the motivations for using CA actions in an OO approach, is the ability of CA actions to extract from the specification of an object those issues which are related with its the collaborative activities, thus avoiding that a specification of a cooperation be scattered among the specifications of the objects. The feasibility of the approach is demonstrated in terms of a benchmark case study.