The “process in the tool syndrome”: is it becoming worse?

It is well known that it may be difficult to integrate a tool in a process-centred SDE (PSDE) whenever the tool embeds an implicit model of (part of) the software process. Usually this happens because the tools exploit some predefined product and/or control structure, and difficulties arise because of an impedance mismatch between the model that is implicit in the tool and the one that is explicit in the PSDE. A typical example is that of configuration management tools. I refer to this situation as the process in the tool syndrome, and in discussing the issue raised in the title I argue that the syndrome is indeed becoming worse, since a new modelling facet, namely that of user models, is becoming a hindrance. The arguments in support of this position come from a discussion of some issues identified in the workshop announcement. I also support my arguments with the experience of Oikos, a meta-environment for PSDEs, under development in Pisa