Software Case Tools Overview

CASE stands for Computer Aided Software Engineering. It means, development and maintenance of software projects with help of various automated software tools.

CASE Tools

CASE tools are set of software application programs, which are used to automate SDLC activities. CASE tools are used by software project managers, analysts and engineers to develop software system.
There are number of CASE tools available to simplify various stages of Software Development Life Cycle such as Analysis tools, Design tools, Project management tools, Database Management tools, Documentation tools are to name a few.
Use of CASE tools accelerates the development of project to produce desired result and helps to uncover flaws before moving ahead with next stage in software development.

Components of CASE Tools

CASE tools can be broadly divided into the following parts based on their use at a particular SDLC stage:

• Central Repository - CASE tools require a central repository, which can serve as a source of common, integrated and consistent information. Central repository is a central place of storage where product specifications, requirement documents, related reports and diagrams, other useful information regarding management is stored. Central repository also serves as data dictionary.
  
• Upper Case Tools - Upper CASE tools are used in planning, analysis and design stages of SDLC.
• Lower Case Tools - Lower CASE tools are used in implementation, testing and maintenance.
• Integrated Case Tools - Integrated CASE tools are helpful in all the stages of SDLC, from Requirement gathering to Testing and documentation.
  

Java - Objects and Classes

Java is an Object-Oriented Language. As a language that has the Object Oriented feature, Java supports the following fundamental concepts:

• Polymorphism
• Inheritance
• Encapsulation
• Abstraction
• Classes
• Objects
• Instance
• Method
• Message Parsing

In this chapter, we will look into the concepts Classes and Objects.

• Object - Objects have states and behaviors. Example: A dog has states - color, name, breed as well as behaviors -wagging, barking, eating. An object is an instance of a class.
• Class - A class can be defined as a template/blue print that describes the behaviors/states that object of its type support.

Objects in Java:

Let us now look deep into what are objects. If we consider the real-world we can find many objects around us, Cars, Dogs, Humans, etc. All these objects have a state and behavior.
If we consider a dog, then its state is - name, breed, color, and the behavior is - barking, wagging, running
If you compare the software object with a real world object, they have very similar characteristics.
Software objects also have a state and behavior. A software object's state is stored in fields and behavior is shown via methods.
So in software development, methods operate on the internal state of an object and the object-to-object communication is done via methods.

Classes in Java:

A class is a blue print from which individual objects are created.
A sample of a class is given below:

public class Dog{
   String breed;
   int age;
   String color;

   void barking(){
   }
   
   void hungry(){
   }
   
   void sleeping(){
   }
}

A class can contain any of the following variable types.

Software Development Life Cycle

Software Development Life Cycle, SDLC for short, is a well-defined, structured sequence of stages in software engineering to develop the intended software product.

SDLC Activities

SDLC provides a series of steps to be followed to design and develop a software product efficiently. SDLC framework includes the following steps:

Communication

This is the first step where the user initiates the request for a desired software product. He contacts the service provider and tries to negotiate the terms. He submits his request to the service providing organization in writing.

Requirement Gathering

This step onwards the software development team works to carry on the project. The team holds discussions with various stakeholders from problem domain and tries to bring out as much information as possible on their requirements. The requirements are contemplated and segregated into user requirements, system requirements and functional requirements. The requirements are collected using a number of practices as given -

• studying the existing or obsolete system and software,
• conducting interviews of users and developers,
• referring to the database or
• collecting answers from the questionnaires.

Software Project Management

The job pattern of an IT company engaged in software development can be seen split in two parts:

• Software Creation
• Software Project Management

A project is well-defined task, which is a collection of several operations done in order to achieve a goal (for example, software development and delivery). A Project can be characterized as:

• Every project may has a unique and distinct goal.
• Project is not routine activity or day-to-day operations.
• Project comes with a start time and end time.
• Project ends when its goal is achieved hence it is a temporary phase in the lifetime of an organization.
• Project needs adequate resources in terms of time, manpower, finance, material and knowledge-bank.

Software Project

A Software Project is the complete procedure of software development from requirement gathering to testing and maintenance, carried out according to the execution methodologies, in a specified period of time to achieve intended software product.

Need of software project management

Software is said to be an intangible product. Software development is a kind of all new stream in world business and there’s very little experience in building software products. Most software products are tailor made to fit client’s requirements. The most important is that the underlying technology changes and advances so frequently and rapidly that experience of one product may not be applied to the other one. All such business and environmental constraints bring risk in software development hence it is essential to manage software projects efficiently.

Software Requirements

The software requirements are description of features and functionalities of the target system. Requirements convey the expectations of users from the software product. The requirements can be obvious or hidden, known or unknown, expected or unexpected from client’s point of view.

Requirement Engineering

The process to gather the software requirements from client, analyze and document them is known as requirement engineering.
The goal of requirement engineering is to develop and maintain sophisticated and descriptive ‘System Requirements Specification’ document.

Requirement Engineering Process

It is a four step process, which includes –

• Feasibility Study
• Requirement Gathering
• Software Requirement Specification
• Software Requirement Validation

Let us see the process briefly -

Feasibility study

When the client approaches the organization for getting the desired product developed, it comes up with rough idea about what all functions the software must perform and which all features are expected from the software.
Referencing to this information, the analysts does a detailed study about whether the desired system and its functionality are feasible to develop.
This feasibility study is focused towards goal of the organization. This study analyzes whether the software product can be practically materialized in terms of implementation, contribution of project to organization, cost constraints and as per values and objectives of the organization. It explores technical aspects of the project and product such as usability, maintainability, productivity and integration ability.
The output of this phase should be a feasibility study report that should contain adequate comments and recommendations for management about whether or not the project should be undertaken.