Managing design knowledge to provide assistance to large-scale software development

The problem is examined of managing design knowledge as a crucial component in a large-scale software development project. The authors explore this design knowledge problem in more detail, describe both technical and nontechnical challenges, discuss the maintenance of such knowledge, and briefly explore the issue of acquisition. A framework is described for providing knowledge-based assistance to software developers. This framework is integrated with and extends an existing design process and exploits that process to address the problem of knowledge maintenance. Then, an implemented design knowledge tool is presented instantiating the framework that gives software developers access to knowledge about a particular error handling mechanism. The organization of the knowledge, the design of the interface, and the status of the implementation are discussed