Design decisions for the incremental Adage framework

Adage, an incremental software development support environment, is discussed. Underlying the Adage architecture is the concept of wide-spectrum services around a common data model, the GDL (Graph Description Language). This model extends the entity-relationship model and provides useful concepts, such as inheritance and self-reflexion, to support genericity and incrementability. Services respond to both end-user and administrator requirements. The last point is achieved through active help in tool integration and tool building and thus in making the environment evolve to cover needs