Automated software management based on structural models

Abstract

A number of software management tasks (consistent system construction, system installation, etc.) can be performed by automatic tools. Given a particular software system, such a tool requires a task model that describes how the task is to be applied to the system. For example, a system construction tool needs to know which operations (compilation, linking, etc.) must be applied to which modules.

Unfortunately, although task models are convenient for an automatic software management tool, they are inconvenient for users for two reasons. First, users have to create and maintain multiple, partially redundant models. Secondly, task models are often quite awkward to deal with-a primary source of difficulty being the need to specify low-level, task-specific details.

In recognition of these problems, recent software management tools have been moving away from task models towards structural models (e.g. who calls who) as a user interface. Structural models are easy to deal with, because they contain high-level, task-independent relationships, rather than task-dependent details.

A prototype tool has been implemented that makes this change complete. The tool automatically performs a variety of software management tasks using a single structural model for a system. The tasks themselves are described separately using system-independent task descriptions.