Knowledge Representation of the Design History of Software Intensive Systems

摘要

The report documents research in the development of techniques for representing the design history of software intensive systems and of prototype tools for using the knowledge to reduce system life cycle costs. The techniques consist of the formalization, in the Common Lisp Object System (CLOS), of already existing and successful methods of software documentation, the data flow diagram (sometimes referred to as transformation diagram), and the finite state machine. The representation, referred to as the Design Knowledge Base (DKB) is capable of capturing the design decisions that went into the development of software intensive systems, facilitates well structured design, and aids in the debugging, maintenance, and reuse of software.