CASE tools as collaborative support technologies

Since the inception of computers, the software industry has searched for dramatic solutions to its systems development problems. In the latter half of the 1980s and into the 1990s, the search has focused on automated software engineering (computer-assisted software engineering or CASE) tools (see, for example, [17]). Many in the software engineering field claim CASE tools will completely replace the software developer [15]. A more realistic view, however, is that such tools will aid systems developers in the process of specifying, designing, and constructing software systems.