A support environment for knowledge-based software design

Most of the important aspects of the design process can be effectively supported if such expertise can be identified, acquired, and reused. This paper presents a design environment that supports this knowledge-based approach to software design. The design approach may be viewed as knowledge-driven refinement of abstract/specific design models. The design environment consists of a design subsystem, an acquisition and refinement subsystem, and a retrieval mechanism for the retrieval of abstract/specific design models. This paper also describes the interactive aspects required in such an environment. The design representation used in the environment consists of leveled dataflow diagrams and entity-relationship based data models supporting structured analysis and dataflow-oriented software design