CASE

Computer-Aided Software Engineering (CASE)


In the field of Software Engineering is the scientific application of a set of tools and methods to a software which is meant to result in high-quality, defect-free, and maintainable software products. It also refers to methods for the development of information systems together with automated tools that can be used in the software development process.

Overview

The term "Computer-aided software engineering" (CASE) can refer to the software used for the automated development of systems software, i.e., computer code. The CASE functions include analysis, design, and programming. CASE tools automate methods for designing, documenting, and producing structured computer code in the desired programming language.
Two key ideas of Computer-aided Software System Engineering (CASE) are:
the harboring of computer assistance in software development and or software maintenance processes, and
An engineering approach to the software development and or maintenance.
Some typical CASE tools are:
Configuration management tools
Data modeling tools
Model transformation tools
Program transformation tools
Refactoring tools
Source code generation tools, and
Unified Modeling Language
Many CASE tools not only output code but also generate other output typical of various systems analysis and design methodologies such as
- data flow diagram
- entity relationship diagram
- logical schema
- Program specification
- SSADM.
- User documentation

History of CASE

The term CASE was originally coined by software company, Nastec Corporation of Southfield, Michigan in 1982 with their original integrated graphics and text editor GraphiText, which also was the first microcomputer-based system to use hyperlinks to cross-reference text strings in documents — an early forerunner of today's web page link. GraphiText's successor product, DesignAid was the first microprocessor-based tool to logically and semantically evaluate software and system design diagrams and build a data dictionary.
Under the direction of Albert F. Case, Jr. vice president for product management and consulting, and Vaughn Frick, director of product management, the DesignAid product suite was expanded to support analysis of a wide range of structured analysis and design methodologies, notable Ed Yourdon and Tom DeMarco, Chris Gane & Trish Sarson, Ward-Mellor (real-time) SA/SD and Warnier-Orr (data driven).
The next entrant into the market was Excelerator from Index Technology in Cambridge, Mass. While DesignAid ran on Convergent Technologies and later Burroughs Ngen networked microcomputers, Index launched Excelerator on the IBM PC/AT platform. While, at the time of launch, and for several years, the IBM platform did not support networking or a centralized database as did the Convergent Technologies or Burroughs machines, the allure of IBM was strong, and Excelerator came to prominence. Hot on the heels of Excelerator were a rash of offerings from companies such as Knowledgeware (James Martin, Fran Tarkenton and Don Addington), Texas Instrument's IEF and Accenture's FOUNDATION toolset (METHOD/1, DESIGN/1, INSTALL/1, FCP).
CASE tools were at their peak in the early 1990s. At the time IBM had proposed AD/Cycle which was an alliance of software vendors centered around IBM's Software repository using IBM DB2 in mainframe and OS/2:
The application development tools can be from several sources: from IBM, from vendors, and from the customers themselves. IBM has entered into relationships with Bachman Information Systems, Index Technology Corporation, and Knowledgeware, Inc. wherein selected products from these vendors will be marketed through an IBM complementary marketing program to provide offerings that will help to achieve complete life-cycle coverage.
With the decline of the mainframe, AD/Cycle and the Big CASE tools died off, opening the market for the mainstream CASE tools of today. Interestingly, nearly all of the leaders of the CASE market of the early 1990s ended up being purchased by Computer Associates, including IEW, IEF, ADW, Cayenne, and Learmonth & Burchett Management Systems (LBMS).

REFERENCE:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer-aided_software_engineering