What happened to integrated environments? (panel session)

Abstract

Software Methods and Tools tonyw @ methods-tools.com 1. A B S T R A C T 20 years ago, in 1979, a l a n d m a r k c o m m u n i t y . wide process was l a u n c h e d to establish notional requirements for integrated software engineering environments. The resulting " S t o n e m a n " d o c u m e n t was published in F e b r u a r y 1980. Bred of the software engineering research c o m m u n i t y and catalyzed by the G o v e r n m e n t A d a sponsor, this "integrated e n v i r o n m e n t m o v e m e n t " b r a n c h e d out and was e m b r a c e d widely in the software engineering c o m m u n i t y in the 1980's as a needed, achievable, centrist a p p r o a c h to accelerate the benefits of disciplined software engineering into m a i n s t r e a m practice. The CASE tool i n d u s t r y b l o o m e d as p r o d u c t s integrating lifecycle activities and artifacts emerged, and research evolved to e n v i r o n m e n t s integrated by s u p p o r t for emerging, m a t u r i n g notions of software processes. Yet, at the end of the 1990's, this m o v e m e n t appears to have virtually died, and m o r e and m o r e p r o d u c t i o n software organizations are instead (or again) using old-fashioned stand-alone d e v e l o p m e n t tools a n d struggling to m a t c h up tools a n d their outputs a n d inputs to do software engineering. The p u r p o s e of this panel is to explore the reasons why the integrated e n v i r o n m e n t m o v e m e n t has retreated, w h e t h e r the recent tools and methods are or are not achieving the goals of integrated environments, w h e t h e r those goals have been superceded by other goals better served without integrated environments, a n d w h a t these examinations indicate about f u t u r e r e q u i r e m e n t s and research needs.