ViewPoints: a vehicle for method and tool integration

An object-based framework for the development of heterogeneous, composite systems is proposed. Such systems require the use of multiple notations and development strategies to described multiple developer perspectives. The framework uses coarse-grain objects, called ViewPoints, that represent agents having roles in and views-of a problem domain. These ViewPoints are loosely coupled, locally managed encapsulations, integrated via inter-ViewPoint consistency relations and transformations. Tool integration is treated as a special case of method integration, and is demonstrated by the viewer, a prototype support environment. The viewer supports the proposed framework, and illustrates how viewpoints may be used for method design, description, integration, and use. Developed in Objectworks/Smalltalk, it maps the object-based framework onto a object-oriented implementation. The top level architecture and implementation of the viewer are presented