The European PCTE initiative

The portable common tool environment (PCTE) approach is closely modelled on the Stoneman architecture for Ada programming support environments. PCTE has been defined through a collaborative European effort, called the PCTE Project. PCTE itself is not an environment, but provides a basis on which an architect can construct environments by the integration of the appropriate tools supporting all aspects of the software development process. The author reports on the widespread acceptance of PCTE by European companies. The Emeraude product implements PCTE and provides a commercially available basis on which to construct PCTE-based software engineering environments