Acquisition, organisation and reuse of software design knowledge

The paper addresses the acquisition, organisation and reuse of knowledge in the design of real-time software systems. Experiences from capturing and making explicit software design alternatives and their selection criteria are evaluated. Generic, software design task-specific and domain-specific types of knowledge are discussed and illustrated using real-life design examples. A prototype of a CASE tool is also described, which incorporates a repository of reusable software components as a source of design alternatives and assists a designer both in selecting them and in analysing the results.