Reference: Nii, H. P. A Proposed Research Initiative in Knowledge-Based CASE Tools: Biting the Silver Bullet. KSL, October, 1989.
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to suggest areas of research targeted to increase the productivity of the software community and to improve the quality of its products. It contains a summary of the problems facing the community and their causes. It describes tools and methodologies currently in use, and summarizes ongoing research. It identifies the task of system specification design as the primary source of software errors. The system designers have difficulties managing complexity, and the most common breakdown in the design process can be attributed to lack of knowledge. The research needed to built software tools to help the software software engineers are identified broadly as: collecting and encoding knowledge about software design schemas and design processes; and inventing software architectures for co-operative problem solving between human and machine.