Supporting tool for assembling software specification and design methods

Specification and design methods for software systems and their support tools are one of the most significant key factors for obtaining success in development projects. Although we have many excellent methods, such as object-oriented analysis and design, we should adapt them into methods that are suitable for a project and its environment, so that we can have more powerful and effective methods. CAME (computer-aided method engineering) is a computerized tool to support the construction and management of methods. Our CAME tool has a method base that stores method fragments and supports in order to assemble the fragments into a suitable method. The method base is implemented on an object base system, and the operations for editing and assembling method fragments are done with a method editor on the WWW. The tool generates the schema of a repository from the product description of a method, and Web pages from its procedural description. The generated Web pages guide the developers following the method, and invoke suitable CASE tools. To generate meaningful method fragments, we need method assembly rules. Our CAME tool can check if the fragments are satisfied with these rules or not, by using Prolog.