| Since the introduction of the object-oriented software engineering paradigm, developers have been faced with the decision whether to switch from the structured software engineering method to the new method. Adopting a hybrid approach that uses structured analysis, object-oriented design, and object-oriented implementation would make it possible for developers to take advantage of the more fully matured areas of the object-oriented software engineering paradigm, while allowing them to make use of investments in CASE tools that support structured analysis. An object-oriented design may be partially achieved by extracting the objects and member functions from the structured analysis diagrams, such as the data flow diagram, entity-relationship diagram, state transition diagram, and the data dictionary. Heuristics and methods for this extraction are provided, then implemented within a programming project. The project was tested on several input diagrams with satisfactory results. Observation on the part of the developer is necessary to complete the design by grouping objects into class hierarchies, adding manager objects and their member functions, and adding any additional member functions necessary to complete candidate objects generated by the program. |
