M-base: Enduser-Initiative Application Development Based on Message Flow and Componentware

Explosive increase in enduser computing on distributed systems requires that endusers develop application software by themselves. One solution is given as a formula of “a domain model ≡ a computation model.” This formula implies that one task in a domain model of cooperative work corresponds to one object in a computation model based on an object-oriented model. Application development environment, M-base1, supports this formula for cooperative systems such as groupware and workflow systems. At the first stage, the system behavior at a macro level is expressed by using a modeling and simulation tool for constructing a message-driven model while focusing on message flow and componentware. At the second stage, a source program in a script language is generated automatically from the message-driven model. Furthermore, if necessary, static structure and detailed specifications of objects are expressed in the script language. Communication among objects is performed by a set of messages instead of a message, for implementation of flexible workflow.