TR-C-0069 :1991.10.19 ( Internal Use )

Timothy J. Gleeson

Software Design and its Automation Final Report

Abstract:This report summarises and reviews a year's research into software system design and its automation. One of the goals of the ATR Communication Systems Research Laboratories is the development of technologies for the automatic generation of communications software, for example, tools to assist in the storage and reuse of aspects of software design. The success of a tool depends on a thorough understanding of the problem it seeks to tackle. Thus it is imperative that we gain a better understanding of the design process. This requires both wide research, to gain an understanding of the basic problems involved, and deep research, to ground the research and to demonstrate feasibility. Much of the research reported here comes into the first category. We summarise the research under the following chapters:

Philosophy First, design philosophy and theories of design in general and design for software in particular are discussed.

Psychology Next, we discuss design psychology. This includes: general psychology, as related to design; psychological activities involved in design; psychological problems and limitations; and knowledge structures and information sources used in design.

Notations One particular information structure we discuss is design notations, and the relationship between internal and external methods of information storage and their relationship.

Decisions The nature of design decisions, making them and recording them are covered.

Future Finally, we discuss the opportunities for design automation and some interesting areas which need more investigation.

These domains are somewhat orthogonal. For example, the issue of design control can be mainly seen in the area of psychological investigation of human designers, but it also has philosophical aspects in the study of design methods and automation aspects when we have to prove these ideas in practice. A listing of all the papers, notes, surveys, abstracts, reports and reviews that I have produced over the year appear in Appendix A. Throughout this final report these documents are referred to. There is also a large annotated bibliography, listing all the papers and books that I have read over the year. For many entries there is a short review.