Towards a disciplined approach to the construction and analysis of sofware engineering environments

In assembling a software engineering environment (SEE) from commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) tools and locally built components, a systematic approach is required that directs how the different pieces should be connected (i.e., integrated). This paper proposes such a method based on the notion that tool and component integration must take place in the context of a well-defined software process. The integration sufficiency profiles (ISPs) that result from this method can be used for constructing a new SEE or for analyzing the appropriateness of an existing SEE. A feature of this method is the emphasis on the use of ISPs in qualitative and quantitative analysis of a SEE