In the early 1980s, a trend towards formal undeIStanding and knowledge-based assistance for the development and maintenance of database-intensive information systems became apparent. The group of John Mylopoulos at the UniveISity of Toronto and their European collaboratoIS moved from semantic models of information systems design (Taxis project) towards earlier stages of the software lifecycle. Joachim Schmidt's group at the University of Hamburg completed their early work on the design and implementation of database programming languages (Pascal/R) and began to consider tools for the development of large database program packages. The Belgian company BIM developed a fast commercial Prolog which turned out to be useful as an implementation language for object oriented knowledge representation schemes and as a prototyping tool for formal design models. Case studies by Vasant Dhar and Matthias Jarke in New York pointed out the need for formally representing process knowledge, and a number of projects in the US and Europe began to consider computer assistance (CASE) as a viable approach to support software engineering. In 1985, the time appeared ripe for an attempt at integrating these experiences in a comprehensive CASE framework relating all phases of an information systems lifecycle. The Commission of the European Communities decided in early 1986 to fund this joint effort by six European software houses and research institutions in the Software Technology section of the ESPRIT I program. The project was given the number 892 and the title DAIDA - Development Assistance for Intelligent Database Applications.
The development of integrated environments for computer-assisted software engineering (CASE) has proven more difficult than expected. The ESPRIT project DAIDA (Advanced Interactive Development of Data-Intensive Applications) has produced the first prototype of a comprehensive systems environment which manages the whole process of information systems development and maintenance as a multi-layered knowledge base with semi-automatic mapping between the layers. Several DAIDA results have had substantial impact on systems development theory and practice: the language Telos and its usage in the ConceptBase system for modeling knowledge about information systems, the modular database programming language DBPL as a theoretical foundation for future object-oriented databases, the integration of knowledge-based analysis and mapping assistants from requirements capture to running code, and a CAD metamodel of information systems processes including support for configuration management and teamwork. The example of a personnel information system is used throughout the book to illustrate the relationships between the different languages, methods, and tools.
The book has three main parts, covering "upper CASE" (requirements analysis and its mapping to initial designs), "lower CASE" (transformation of designs into efficient database programmes), and process management. In addition to direct DAIDA results, the book contains contributions from collaborating national and North American projects. The intended audience for the book are practitioners, researchers, and graduate students with an interest in CASE integration for data-intensive information systems.
