Process-centered Software Engineering Environments

Book excerpt: Process-Centered Software Engineering Environments (PSEEs) represent a new generation of software engineering environments in which the processes used to produce and maintain software products are explicitly modeled in the environment. PSEEs hold the exciting promise of enabling a significant increase in both software productivity and quality. The book presents a comprehensive picture of this emerging technology while highlighting the key concepts and issues. The first chapter introduces some of the basic concepts and developments behind PSEEs and discusses the unifying role it plays in combining project management, software engineering, and process engineering. The second chapter reviews related process modeling and representation concepts, terminology, and issues. Chapter 3 analyzes the features of some example PSEEs and Chapter 4 takes an inside look at the implementation of these features by describing specific design choices made by researchers. The last chapter discusses the evolution of PSEEs to accommodate practical issues in actual work settings and to play a more significant role in the software life cycle. The text is a collection of influential papers that will bring the newcomer quickly up to speed on this fast-moving field. For the researcher, the issues described in the text present a challenge to be conquered and directions to pursue. For the practitioner, they represent benefits that may be gained in the application of PSEEs in the work environment.