An overview of the HOOD method

HOOD (Hierarchical Object-Oriented Design) is object-oriented design method which was originally targeted at Ada program development. Object-oriented design approaches are based on identifying the classes of objects in a system. Classes are described in terms of their behaviour and structure, with each object modelling a real-world entity. A class and its operations are defined as a single unit. Each object is a member of a class and the operations are defined for all members of a class. The author provides an overview of HOOD and then looks at some case studies of its application at the European Space Agency and Thorn EMI Electronics. He concludes with a general look at its benefits.<>