Environments for cooperative systems development

The predictions made in the early-1980s about the role of software engineering environments and their positive influence on the software process have not come true. Integrated project support environments are not widely used and their benefits have not been demonstrated. A bottom-up approach to environment construction which starts with an environment architecture is doomed to commercial failure. Environments will only be successful if they reduce software development costs and if they are structured so that they may be purchased bit-by-bit according to need. Development costs can be reduced with cooperative systems development. The author looks at CASE environments for cooperative systems development