Compuware has opted for the software factory approach to increase the level of automation it can provide in applications development with the latest version of its Java-based OptimalJ development suite, version 4.2. This is also to be known as the Architecture Edition.

Its arrival marks the transition of all OpitmalJ editions onto the Eclipse platform, where it will be able to exploit the growing range of open source plug-ins to provide developers with significant amounts of design flexibility. By using the software factory approach, it also aims to cut the development cost over-runs that occur in fixing applications once in production, by giving developers a better chance to get it right first time. It is using the factory approach to target architectural consistency by combining meta-models and transformations that are packaged up as factories and distributed throughout a development team.

This is expected to reduce the amount of time developers spend on routine coding, as well as improving architectural tasks that can take up large lumps of time. These include such jobs as establishing the traceability between requirements, design models and application code. Architectural decisions can now be enforced via model-to-model transformations, which should make the development cycle a good deal shorter.®

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