Screengrab - ERWin 4.1.4.3643 on Win2K.gif|thumbnail|right|ERWin CASE tool on Windows 2000]] Computer-aided software engineering (CASE) is the use of software tools to assist in the development and maintenance of software. Tools used to assist in this way are known as CASE Tools.

All aspects of the software development lifecycle can be supported by software tools, and so the use of tools from across the spectrum can, arguably, be described as CASE; from project management software through tools for business and functional analysis, system design, code storage, compilers, translation tools, test software, and so on.

However, it is the tools that are concerned with analysis and design, and with using design information to create parts (or all) of the software product, that are most frequently thought of as CASE tools. Such tools arose out of developments such as Jackson Structured Programming and the software modelling techniques promoted by researchers such as Ed Yourdon, Chris Gane and Trish Sarson (see structured programming, SSADM). In this narrower range, CASE applied, for instance, to a database software product, might normally involve:

• Modelling business / real world processes and data flow
• Development of data models in the form of entity-relationship diagrams
• Development of process and function descriptions
• Production of database creation SQL and stored procedures

CASE tools were at their peak in the early 1990's. At the time IBM had proposed AD/Cycle which was an alliance of software vendors centered around IBM's mainframe. The two giants of the time were Atlanta based KnowledgeWare with their IEW (software engineering) and ADW tools and Texas Instruments with their IEF tool. These tools were full lifecycle and included Upper CASE and Lower CASE (see below). With the decline of the mainframe, AD/Cycle and the Big CASE tools died off, opening the market for the mainstream CASE tools of today. Interesting enough, nearly all of the leaders of the CASE market of the early 1990's ended up being purchased by Computer Associates, including IEW, IEF, ADW, Cayenne, and LBMS.

Some typical CASE tools are:

• Code generation tools
• UML editors and the like
• Refactoring tools
• QVT or Model transformation Tools
• Configuration management tools including revision control

CASE tools do not only output code. They also generate other output typical of various systems analysis and design methodologies such as SSADM. E.g.

• database schema
• data flow diagrams
• entity relationship diagrams
• program specifications
• user documentation

Sometimes CASE tools are separated in two groups:

• Upper CASE: Tools for the analysis and design phase of the software development lifecycle (diagramming tools, report and form generators, analysis tools)
• Lower CASE: Tools to support implementation, testing, configuration management

See also

• List of UML tools
• James Martin (author)
• Rapid application development
• Fourth-generation programming language
• Model-driven architecture
• Domain-specific modelling
• Modeling language

External links

• Definition and discussion of CASE from Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute

• CASE tool index - Quite a comprehensive list

Software engineering | Data management

Computer-Aided Software Engineering | Herramienta CASE | Computer-aided software engineering | Computer-aided software engineering | CASE įrankis | CASE | Ferramenta CASE | CASE