元件導向之圖形化軟體設計標註與評估工具

Abstract

對為了解決複雜問題的大型軟體系統來說，其內部結構也是相對的複雜。為了掌握此複雜的結構，專家們提出了相當多的軟體工程方法和技術, 如元件為基礎的開發方式、設計模式、觀點導向編程等等。雖然有這些技術的輔助，大部份軟體開發者在設計系統解決問題，亦或學習應用最新的軟體開發技術時，仍需付出極大的精力。為了幫助軟體開發者選擇適當的設計決策及了解軟體系統內部複雜的結構關係，我們提出一個簡易的軟體設計輔助架構，能使用統一的元件模型來表達系統在不同的抽象層級及不同部分的軟體設計細節。根據此模型架構，我們開發了一個圖形化軟體設計註解及評估的輔助工具，能將軟體設計從不同的觀點及角度以圖形化的介面顯現出來。以此輔助工具為基礎，我們也開發出一套具彈性可客製化的軟體設計量測系統，以量化方式量測出發展過程中系統各部分設計的特徵及潛在的問題，作為系統進一步改進的依據。

Modern large-scale software systems bear complex internal structures to match the complexity of the problems they solve. To help coping with the structural complexity, numerous software engineering methods and techniques have been proposed and developed, including component-based development, design patterns, aspect-oriented programming, and so on. Despite these efforts, mastering software development skills in general and state-of-the-art techniques in particular continues to be a painstaking, try-and-error process for most, if not all, software developers. To help software developers make proper design decisions and/or understand the rationales behind complex software system design, we propose a simple conceptual framework in which software designs at various abstraction levels can be represented in terms of a generic component model that rests on the notion of polymorphism. In addition, we develop an assisting graphical annotation framework that is capable of visualizing various aspects of software designs, as well as a flexible metrics subsystem that can be customized to reveal design consistency in a more quantitative manner.