CASE Tools

CASE Tools

CASE tools stand for Computer Aided Software Engineering tools As the name implies they are computer based programs to increase the productivity of analysts They permit effective communication with users as well as other members of the development team. They integrate the development done during each phase of a system life cycle. They assist in correctly assessing the effects and cost of changes so that maintenance cost can be estimated.

1 Available CASE tools

Commercially available systems provide tools for each phase of the system development life cycle. A typical package is Visual Analyst which has several tools integrated together.

Tools are also in the open domain which can be downloaded and used. They do not usually have very good user interfaces.

System requirements specification documentation tool

Data flow diagramming tool

System flow chart generation tool

Data dictionary creation

Formatting and checking structured English process logic

Decision table checking

Screen design for data inputting

Form design for outputs.

E-R diagramming

Data base normalization given the dependency information

2 Uses

Improve productivity of their software engineers

Reduce time to develop applications

            Improve documentation

            Automate system analysis

3 Disadvantages

            Some tools are expensive

            All software engineers need to be trained to use these tools

            A lot of time is wasted in using the tools

            Software developed using CASE tools are of poor quality

4 Advantages

            they integrate the development done during each phase of system development

            they permit effective communication with users

            they are useful as communication aids with users of the system