Open architecture and tool integration of software development environments

Software development environments (SDEs) are examined from the environment architect´s perspective. The main interest is in investigating two related issues of building SDEs: open architecture and tool integration. A taxonomy of architectural mechanisms that solely determine the underlying architecture of an SDE is presented. The significance of this taxonomy is that it makes it possible to study the intrinsic properties of SDE architecture with respect to technical issues such as portability, tool integration, tool construction, tailorability, and evolution of SDEs. Four types of mechanisms are identified: modeling and schema-definition mechanisms, access mechanisms, interprocess communication mechanisms, and execution mechanisms. These four types of mechanisms reflect the relationship of tools to the SDE architecture. For each type of mechanism, various approaches proposed in the literature are compared and openness and integration are discussed. It is suggested that truly open and integrated SDEs can be achieved through careful selection of architectural mechanisms and good implementation strategies of these mechanisms