Forum for Academic Software Engineering Volume 4, Number 4, Fri Feb 4 09:22:18 CST 1994 Topics: Reply to CASE tools article Announcement: 4th Reengineering Forum Software Engineering Seminar A------------------------------------------------------- From: Boston Technical (Charles Lavine) Subject: Reply to CASE tools article Interesting comments regarding teaching with Excelerator versus LeCASE. I agree that LeCASE is an easier-to-use product than Excelerator, which is truly weak in many ways. To quote a professor at Auburn University, "a box of crayolas is superior to Excelerator, for student use." However, both packages have significant drawbacks. My company is the exclusive distributor for Siemens' family of CASE tools, called XperCASE, and a distributor for Visible Systems' Visible Analyst. Both products, while different, are superior to the two products you have mentioned. And both have student versions, or LITE products, priced at $$99. retail. They both also offer about 70% off the full priced packages, for educational purchasers. And XperCASE is offered on a 30 Day free evaluation for any academic institution. XperCASE is windows based, requiring a 286 or above machine, Windows 3.0 or above, DOS 3.1 or above, 1.5MB HD space, and 1.5MB RAM. It addresses the entire life-cycle, and is available in C/C++, COBOL, and language independent SPX versions. It currently has an 80% share of the European lower CASE market, and can be linked to virtually any other CASE tool or compiler effortlessly. The product is being sold alone, or linked to Popkin's System Architect (in Europe), linked to Visible's Visible Analyst (in America), or embedded in EDS' Designer Cobol. It is a very nice product family, and since its introduction in America in January, is already being evaluated at over 100 universities. It is particularly helpful in reengineering, and can generate code in any language. XperCASE will be written up in Computer World either next week or the week after, if you'd like to see what journalists think. Visible Analyst comes in either DOS or Windows versions, and has been out for some four years. It is already used by many Universities, and has replaced Excelerator at dozens of schools. In short, if you are teaching CASE tools, or programming, I urge you to look at these two products. The educational pricing is as low, or lower, than any competing products, and the functionality is considerably improved. I would be happy to give you, or any University faculty member, the free 30 day evaluation previously mentioned. My experience in the CASE world is that even the most expensive products, such as TI's IEF, have considerable gaps. An example of this is the Air Force's decision to halt the I-CASE award it gave, only December 14, to Lockheed for in excess of $400,000,000.00, because IEF cannot generate ADA source code on a PC platform. Thus, a wise user should examine as much of the universe as possible, before settling for a fundamentally flawed approach. Please feel free to email at BosTech@world.std.com or call at 617-248-8989 with any questions or comments. I look forward to your thoughts. Charles Lavine Boston Technical Distribution A------------------------------------------------------- From: Elliot Chikofsky Subject: Announcement: 4th Reengineering Forum 4TH REENGINEERING FORUM 19-21 September 1994 - Victoria, BC, Canada Call for Presentations: "Reengineering in Practice" The Reengineering Forum is a combined industry/research review of the state of the art and the state of the practice in reengineering of business processes, software and systems and in reverse engineering of the same. It is a meeting place for key people in the reengineering field: developers, researchers, and leading-edge users. Presentations are invited on all aspects of reengineering in practice: -- business process reengineering -- IT transformation to better support the enterprise -- systems reengineering -- software & data reengineering -- reverse engineering -- program understanding -- related topics... Our objective is to form a broad perspective snapshot of the present state of the field. Technical and user experience presentations are sought; sales pitches are discouraged. Blue sky and "what I really need is..." presentations are welcome. The Forum includes presentations by experienced users, tools developers, and industrial and academic researchers, describing the current state and directions of products, prototypes, and approaches. As a principal technical meeting of the reengineering field, a major focus of the Forum is to allow ample opportunity for one-on-one and group discussion among presenters and attendees. Interaction is paramount. The Forum is held as much to be a meeting place for the speakers to compare notes on the future of the field as it is for attendees to learn about the state-of-the-art and new developments. It incorporates and expands upon the Reverse Engineering Forum, established in 1990. The Forum has been successful as a key resource for software professionals who are looking for, or developing, solutions for coping with existing system assets. This year, the Forum joins with the 11th Intl Conf. on Software Maintenance (ICSM'94) of the IEEE Computer Society to form the 1994 Reengineering and Maintenance Week. This brings together industry and research communities with similar interests throughout the week of September 19-23, including exhibits, tutorials, joint sessions, working meetings, and workshops. Presentation and panel session proposals are due by April 30, 1994. Submit a 1-2 page description to: Reengineering Forum, P.O. Box 400, Burlington, MA 01803 USA email reengineer@computer.org; fax 617-272-8464. The Forum also welcomes proposals for Discussion Round Table sessions. These are extended, focused working discussions on technical topics. Round Table topics have included: reengineering economics models; development of a DoD reengineering strategy; revisiting the IEEE Software taxonomy of reverse engineering and reengineering; the role of standards in maintenance and reengineering. The Forum uses a "rolling admissions" policy for accepting presentations. Some speaker slots are kept open until days before the meeting to enable previously undiscovered work and new results/developments to be presented. This results in a high-quality, timely, and very current program for Forum attendees. Speaker foils are published as the proceedings with as late a deadline as logistics will allow. Specific dates/time for all speakers are assigned at the last possible minute, maximizing speaker participation in the entire program and retaining flexibility for the best possible program. Speakers are encouraged to be full participants in the Forum, and not just dropping in to give a presentation. In general, as a meeting of the field, speakers will pay an attendee fee. ---------- General Chair: Elliot Chikofsky Northeastern University Industrial Engineering & Information Systems 75 Lexington Street Burlington, MA 01803 USA 617-272-0049 fax 617-272-8464 e.chikofsky@computer.org Exhibits: Judith Marx Golub Software Management News B-10 Suite 237 4546 El Camino Real Los Altos, CA 94022 USA 415-969-5522 fax 415-969-5949 j.golub@computer.org Tutorials: Shawn Bohner The MITRE Corporation 611 West Poplar Road Sterling, VA 20164-4733 USA 703-883-7354 fax 703-883-6991 bohner@mitre.org ---------- 4th Reengineering Forum is sponsored by the non-profit Reverse Engineering Forum Inc., a 501(c)(6) tax exempt industry association. In cooperation with: -- International Workshop on CASE (IWCASE) -- Software Engineering Institute (SEI) / Carnegie Mellon Univ. -- Software Management Association -- Software Management News ---------- For information on ICSM, contact: Lee J. White Case Western Reserve University Dept. of Computer Engr & Science 511 Crawford Hall Cleveland, OH 44106 USA 216-368-2802 fax 216-368-2801 leew@alpha.ces.cwru.edu or IEEE Computer Society, Conferences Office, 202-371-1013 A------------------------------------------------------- From: "Donald Day (Syracuse University)" Subject: Software Engineering Seminar SOFTWARE ENGINEERING An Introduction March 1-3, 1994 Sheraton Premiere at Tysons Corner, Virginia A Professional Development Seminar Presented by the Data & Analysis Center for Software COURSE DESCRIPTION Software Engineering: An Introduction is a high-level introduction to principles, practices and issues in software engineering. Each lecture presents a skeletal outline of one major area of concern. Specific issues raised in the lectures are explored in more depth during two hands-on workshops: a case study simulation and a team problem-solving exercise. Lists of additional materials provide an avenue for participants to explore each lecture in more detail, after the course. COURSE WORKSHOPS The DACS believes that participatory learning is more effective than training which relies solely upon lectures. That's why this DACS seminar includes significant time in exercises which reinforce key points made during lecture presentations. The seminar includes two participaroty workshops. One is a case study simulation of a software engineering problem set taken from a number of real-life situations. Participants are asked to draw upon their own experiences as they interact with many others in solving the engineering problems at hand. The other is a cooperative work (team) problem-solving exercise in which participants are asked to tackle specific, real-life problems. COST $65.00 (cost of recovery). SEMINAR CONTENT 1. Software Systems Engineering - the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) - software process modeling - development tradeoffs 2. Specification of Software Systems - requirements analysis - specification models - documentation - standards 3. Principles and Application of Software Design - abstraction principles - modularity and information hiding - software reuse - rapid prototyping - design methods and systems - human-computer interfaces 4. Software Generation and Maintenance - application tools and techniques - reverse engineering - technical reviews - program dependencies and other maintenance issues 5. Software Verification, Validation and Testing - quality assurance - formal verification - test design and implementation - proof of correctness - software metrics 6. Software Project Management - configuration management - software versioning systems - project scheduling - software economics and estimating - risk analysis - legal issues THE RESOURCE BINDER A major benefit of the seminar is a three-ring binder provided to each participant. This Resource Binder includes copies of all overheads used during lectures, the cases used for the workshop simulation, and the problem statements assigned to solution teams. The binder will help participants to customize course content and apply it creatively to real-life problems faced in their jobs every day. ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR Donald Day is a member of the DACS professional staff and is a Ph.D. candidate in Information Transfer at the School of Information Studies, Syracuse University, where he is performing research on user responses to the constraints of computer-mediated design. He has served as Operations Manager of the Research and Development Facility at the Center for Naval Analysis. At General Electric Military and Data Systems, Mr. Day developed and managed systems for the administration of real-time control activities related to defense information gathering application. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION Inquiries about SOFTWARE ENGINEERING: An Introduction should be directed to: Dennis Wesolowski Program Director, DACS P.O. Box 120, Utica, NY 13503-0120 Phone : 1-315-734-3644 Internet : dennisw@utica.kaman.com A LIST has been set up at the DACS to help answer questions or concerns as well as to distribute the DACS seminar registration forms. All requests should be addressed to listserv@utica.kaman.com and all correspondence to DACS_L@utica.kaman.com. Registration forms are being distributed by the listserver the archive name is DACS_L and the file name is registration_form. Class space is limited and registration is based on first come first serve. A second class will be scheduled if demand dictates so. HOTEL REGISTRATION INFORMATION Sheraton Premiere at Tysons Corner 8661 Leesburg Pike Vienna, VA 22182 Phone (703) 448-1234 Fax (703) 790-8091 Single occupancy - $125.00/$135.00/$145.00 Double occupancy - $140.00/$150.00/$160.00 Government Rates - $103.29 Single, $117.38 Double (rates do not include local taxes of 6.5%) A block of 30 rooms will be reserved for attendees until February 14. After this date, reservations will be accepted at the special rates based on availability. Complimentary hotel van service to and from Washington Dulles International Airport and Washington National Airport is available. +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Donald L. Day D01DAYXX@SUVM.ACS.SYR.EDU | | IST, 4-282 Ctr for Sci & Tech Donald_Day.chi@xerox.com | | Syracuse University 1-315-443-5611 or -2911 (voice) | | Syracuse, NY 13244-4100 USA 1-315-443-5806 (fax) | | [user responses to constraints in computerized design tools] | +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ E------------------------------------------------------------------- FASE Volume 4 Number 4 Send newsletter articles to fase-submit@d.umn.edu or fase@d.umn.edu Send requests to add, delete, or modify a subscription to fase-request@d.umn.edu Send problem reports, returned mail, or other correspondence about this newsletter to fase-owner@d.umn.edu or kpierce@d.umn.edu Keith Pierce, Editor Laurie Werth, Advisory Committee Department of Computer Science Dept. of Computer Science University of Minnesota, Duluth Taylor Hall 2.124 Duluth, MN 55812-2496 University of Texas at Austin Telephone: (218) 726-7194 Austin, Texas 78712 Fax: (218) 726-6360 Telephone: (512) 471-9535 Email: kpierce@d.umn.edu Fax: (512)471-8885 Email: lwerth@cs.utexas.edu