Collaborating Software Engineering Processes in Tempo

We will show in this article how Tempo, a processcentered software engineering environment (SEE), assists in cooperative work by means of an approach based on a communicationmodel. We will describe the executable formalism used to de ne software engineering activities, and we will show how constraints related to the use of objects in these activities are expressed using the role concept. We will then present our communication model. In this model, strategies governing the cooperation between various software processes are speci ed by the concept of active, programmable connections. A connection is a communication channel that links two roles. Message exchange is controlled using TECA rules (Temporal-Event-Condition-Action rules), executed by a trigger mechanism. These allow for programming of synchronization strategies between processes, propagating the e ects of an executed action on one or more connection points. The Temporary modes of TECA rules allow for transactions of long duration, because these can be used to reason on past activities. Coherence control of objects handled by activities of long duration is performed by the work environments. The union between connections and work environments makes it possible to support cooperating processes and object sharing between these processes.