The vision and objectives of the or...

The vision and objectives of the original SoftBench fruit have enabled it to continue to be a leader in the integrated software evolution market. For example, since SoftBench 10 above 80 third-party software tools have been integrated with SoftBench.

HP SoftBench is an integrated software disclosure environment designed to facilitate rapid, interactive program construction, trial and maintenance in a distributed computing environment. The SoftBench proceeds contains an integration framework and a wager of software development tools, as well as the ability to integrate tools from other sources.

SoftBench was released in 1989 and quick in emergenciesed in the June 1990 HP Journal.[1] At that time, no undivided would have guessed the market changes that would come into one's head during SoftBench's life. Fortunately, the vision and objectives of the original produce designers have allowed SoftBench to continue to be a leader in the integrated software increase market.

This article presents the actions that have made SoftBench a standard in the integrated software evolution market, the original SoftBench objectives that have stood the experiment of time, and the of recent origin technologies that have been incorporated into SoftBench. Other articles in this issue will current more information about the of the present day technologies in SoftBench.

The different versions of SoftBench released since its introduction in 1989 are shown in Fig. 1

[Figure 1 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Making SoftBench the Standard

SoftBench defined the render free of access integrated CASE (computer-aided software engineering) market. The first big challenge was to make SoftBench pervasive in the market. We used several approaches, including leading standards unfolding working with software tool providers, and licensing the framework source digest HP started and supported CASE Communique, a standards material part that focused on defining the messages used for intertool communication. This work was adopted as the basis of intertool communication standards for software evolution tools by the ANSI X3H6 Committee.

HP worked with software tool providers, as well-as; not only-but also; not only-but; not alone-but through CASE Communique and with independent software vendor (ISV) programs, to provide SoftBench integration for their tools. There have been throughout 80 third-party software tools integrated with SoftBench, and we continue to diocese interest from software tool vendors who want to integrate their tools with SoftBench.

The source licensing program was interesting to many companies for a number of reasons. near companies ported SoftBench to their hardware, added a certain quantity of tools, and sold it to their customers. Several other companies have ported SoftBench to their be in possession of hardware for use by their internal disclosure organizations. One company, SAIC (Science Applications International Corporation), conracts with customers to provide cross-development support for other, usually non-UNIX,[R] platforms. This is used mainly for legacy method support or to develop software for platforms that can't support a native application progressive growth environment. This is the solely part of the source licensing program that is still active. The article forward page 22 describes the activities of the Science Applications International Corporation.

The SoftBench broadcast message server (BMS) framework was adopted according to other HP products and near customers' products, in addition to its use in SoftBench. The biggest user of the BM framework is HP WE (Visual User Environment) BM provides the same exhibit integration of desktop tools in HP WE that it provides for software tools in SoftBench. For software developer BM also provides an integration of the desktop tools with software disclosure tools.

Original Objectives of SoftBench

The SoftBench framework continues to provide the foundation for SoftBench and has stood the exhibition of time. The following are the original objectives of the SoftBench architecture and the changes that have taken place.

Support Integrated Toolsets. This goal dictated that the SoftBench tools should cooperate to provide a task-oriented environment that leases users concentrate on what they want to do, not in what manner to do it. SoftBench continues to provide a task-oriented environment by means of allowing tools to be started from each other. For example, in in the greatest degree SoftBench tools you can indicate the references for any emblem via the static analyzer.

Some users select a tool-focused environment, so SoftBench 50 has a novel ToolBar to make it easier to behold what tools are available in SoftBench (see Fig. 2)

[Figure 2 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Support Interchangeable Tools. The general [i]or[/i] abstract notion of plug and play, which allows users to exchange a SoftBench-supplied tool with common of their preference, has guided SoftBench's architecture and the increase of standards in the CASE industry. subject editors and configuration management orders are the most common tools that users customize.

Support a Distributed Computing Environment. This goal required that all tool execution, data, and display should be designed for a network environment. This objective was based forward the scenario of a software growth team using a group of workstations with varying capabilities and shared devise files on a central server Providing distributed computing support in SoftBench has not single allowed it to work well in this scenario, nevertheless also has provided additional benefit in the ability to target computer and embedded hypothesiss that cannot support an application progress to maturity environment. The biggest SoftBench customers make use of this capability.