FlexiTools 2010 - Flexible Modeling Tools (FlexiTools2010)

Flexible Modeling Tools (FlexiTools2010)
Sunday, 2 May 2010

http://www.ics.uci.edu/~tproenca/icse2010/flexitoo...
Organizers:
Harold Ossher, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, USA
André van der Hoek, University of California, Irvine, USA
Margaret-Anne Storey, University of Victoria, Canada
John Grundy, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Rachel Bellamy, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, USA
During the exploratory phases of design, it is more common to use white boards, pen and paper or other informal mechanisms than modeling tools. During the early stages of requirements engineering, it is more common to use office tools. These informal approaches are easy to learn and give the user great freedom, among other advantages. Yet, as in many other tasks throughout the software lifecycle, the advantages of modeling tools would be valuable too: multiple views, providing domain-specific assistance, ensuring consistency, etc.
Formal modeling tools and more informal but flexible, free-form approaches have complementary strengths and weaknesses. Whichever practitioners choose for a particular task, they lose the advantages of the other, with attendant frustration and loss of productivity. What can be done about this unfortunate dichotomy? Flexible modeling tools that blend the advantages of modeling tools and the more free-form approaches would allow users to make tradeoffs between flexibility and precision/formality and to move smoothly between them. They might be modeling tools with added flexibility, or office tools with added modeling support, or tools of a new kind. This workshop will bring together people who understand tool users’ needs, usability, user interface design and tool infra-structure to explore this area.