| The variety and complexity of application areas resulting from the ever increasing capabilities and functions of computer hardware demand technically advanced methodologies for application system development. It has also become evident that the conventional manual methodologies are no longer adequate and that the help of computers is needed.; A logical framework of the Methodology Development System (MDS), which generates a Methodology Support tool System (MSS) given a system development methodology, is developed. Tools and models required by MDS for the development of MSS are developed.; The Entity-Relationship model, that has been shown to be appropriate for general information system modelling, is extended, and provided with a schema language, as a data model for the conceptual modelling. The extensions are made so that a conceptual schema includes specifications of integrity constraints. Consistency constraints are used to specify the integrity of a target system description and may also be used to coordinate system development activities so that the activities confirm the specified rules and procedures of the methodology.; For completeness verification, the content of a target data base (abstract model) is modelled as a directed, recursive, edge-labelled hyper-graph. A predicate based graph traversal scheme, and a language to describe the completeness verification algorithm based on the scheme is proposed. Completeness criteria of a particular methodology may be described using the predicates which are derived from the conceptual model.; The MDS/MSS, if implemented, will provide a software engineering laboratory in which methodologies are developed, implemented, and tested. The MDS/MSS concept is illustrated by demonstrating the applications to two state-of-the-art software development methodologies. |
