Software development is highly dependent on the use of tools. These tools support and automate activities performed in different sub-domains of software development. However, they don&lsquo / t adequately provide or support integration facilities, and act as &amp / #8213 / islands of automation&amp / #8214 / . This restricts their benefits to only specific parts of the process. To reap the benefits of integration, this thesis provides a process modeling based method named PLETIN to identify and implement software development tool integration-tuples. The method aims to present solutions for issues observed in tool integration for software development organizations by delivering an integrated tool set. The proposed solution approach is based on the idea that if there were no integrations between tools at all, users would perform the necessary actions to cooperate different tools. PLETIN is a method for the identification of the candidate integration situations (integration-tuples) from the interactions of users with the tools. These tuples constitute the requirements used to develop integration facilities. The software development process definitions are used as inputs to create process models and provide actual implementations. The research is supported with case-study work to identify the significance of the problems and the applicability of the method as a solution to issues in tool integration.

Enterprise portals are comprehensive solutions that enable centralized access to information and employees. They also support the business processes taking place in companies. The diversity of functionality offered by enterprise portals is the source of the complexity of the manufacturing process of such applications. Domain-Specific Languages (DSL) are a novel approach to solving problems associated with the software development. By limiting the possibilities of expression to the concepts related to a specific area Domain-Specific Languages are more focused on solving specific problems. The subject of this thesis is DSL SharePoint – Domain-Specific Language which supports the production of enterprise portals on Microsoft SharePoint platform. Language was developed with respect to the newest achievements in area of building DSLs. By applying the language in the industry, it was possible to verify the hypothesis that its usage positively affects the quality of software products. To this end, the quality model was built, and products made with the support of language have been compared to those developed in the traditional manner.

<p>Software engineering tools are being used in the industry in order to improve the productivity and the quality of the software development process. The properties of those tools are being perceived to be unsatisfactory. For example, researchers have found that some problems are due to deficient integration among the tools. Furthermore, a continuing problem is that there is a gap between the IT education and real demand of tool-skills form IT industry. Consequently, knowledge is needed of the properties of software development tools as well an understanding of demanded tool-skill from the industry. </p><p>The purpose of this study is to survey commercial software development environment (SDEs) that are used today in professional software engineering and discuss their advantages adn disadvantages. A secondary goal of the study is to identify the actual requirements from the industry on the IT-education. </p><p>A questionnaire was sent out to 90 software developers and IT managers of 30 IT companies in Sweden. The results of the survey show that IT companies, for most part, use SDEs from commercial software vendors. Respondents report that common problems of the SDEs are the following: bad integration among the tools, problems to trace software artifacts in the different phases of the programming cycle, and deficient support for version control and system configuration. Furthermore, some tools are difficult to use which results in a time-consuming development process. </p><p>We conclude that future software development environments need to provide better support for integration, automation, and configuration management. Regarding the required tool-skills, we believe that the IT education would gain from including commercial tools that cover the whole software product lifecycle in the curriculum.</p>

Software engineering tools are being used in the industry in order to improve the productivity and the quality of the software development process. The properties of those tools are being perceived to be unsatisfactory. For example, researchers have found that some problems are due to deficient integration among the tools. Furthermore, a continuing problem is that there is a gap between the IT education and real demand of tool-skills form IT industry. Consequently, knowledge is needed of the properties of software development tools as well an understanding of demanded tool-skill from the industry. The purpose of this study is to survey commercial software development environment (SDEs) that are used today in professional software engineering and discuss their advantages adn disadvantages. A secondary goal of the study is to identify the actual requirements from the industry on the IT-education. A questionnaire was sent out to 90 software developers and IT managers of 30 IT companies in Sweden. The results of the survey show that IT companies, for most part, use SDEs from commercial software vendors. Respondents report that common problems of the SDEs are the following: bad integration among the tools, problems to trace software artifacts in the different phases of the programming cycle, and deficient support for version control and system configuration. Furthermore, some tools are difficult to use which results in a time-consuming development process. We conclude that future software development environments need to provide better support for integration, automation, and configuration management. Regarding the required tool-skills, we believe that the IT education would gain from including commercial tools that cover the whole software product lifecycle in the curriculum.