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Standardization, availability and use of PCTE

by IAN CAMPBELL

Abstract: Portable common tool environment (PCTE) corresponds to the kernel q/ the IPSE, and is a crucial inter~ace and environment./or improving software productivity. This paper details the background o[ PCTE. It explains how European commerical companies have implemented and marketed a product called Emeraude on the Bull and Sun workstations qffering the standard public common tool inte~j~we ( PCTI) d~fined in the PCTE specification.

Kevwords. so/hrare development, IPSEs, standards.

u ntil very recently software has been developed predominantly on large centralized computer systems using a collection of tools bearing little

or no relationship to one another. There has consequently been little general support given to the software engineer during the software development process.

It is against this background that the concept of an integrated project support environment (IPSE) has emerged. An IPSE is a development environment into which tools supporting all the various phases of software development (sometimes called the life cycle) are inte- grated.

It is recognized that the availability of such integrated environments is crucial for improving the productivity of the software industry. Out of this realization has arisen the concept of the portable common tool environment (PCTE).

The PCTE approach is closely modelled on the Stoneman architecture for ADA programming support environments (APSE). Stoneman is the final version of the Department of Defence (DoD) APSE requirement specification (early versions were called Sandman and Pebbleman). The PCTE framework corresponds to the kernel of the IPSE. PCTE has been defined through a collaborative effort, taking account of the state-of-the-art

Syseca Logiciel, 315 Bureaux de la Colline, 92213 Saint-Cloud Cedex, l"rancc.

in this area of software technology. PCTE is seen as providing the basis for advanced software engineering environments by defining:

• a public common tool interface (PCTI) to be used as the standard for tool integration,

• the necessary portable framework for the IPSE integrated on the PCTE basis

The definition of PCTE has been jointly funded, over the period 1983 to 1986, by the European Community's ESPRIT programme and by six major European manufacturers: Bull, GEC, ICL, Nixdorf, Olivetti and Siemens. It is now managed as a standard by the PCTE Interface Management Board (PIMB) which has set up the necessary technical and administrative support to do configuration control of the PCTE interface set definition. As well as the above mentioned companies which are represented on the board, there are Philips, the European Space Administration, the Independent European Programme Group representing European NATO defence ministries, software house representatives, universities and GIE Emeraude.

Three French companies (Bull, Eurosoft, Syseca) have constituted a joint venture called GIE Emeraude to implement and market a product offering the standard PCTI defined by the PCTE specifications. Such a product should provide a suitable basis for various software engineering projects, and be available on different categories of machines, to cover the needs of various teams of software developers.

This product, called Emeraude, is now available on Bull SPS7 workstations. Availability on other workstations is well in hand, and Emeraude will be available on Sun by the end of 1987.

The porting of Emeraude to Sun, Vax and Vaxstation, PC/AT and HP9000 model 320 is being carried out using Unix on these workstations, through collaboration between GIE Emeraude and the UK companies, CAP and Software Sciences, and is partially funded by the European Community's ESPRIT programme under the Sapphire project. This project includes the production

vol 29 no 8 october 1987 0950-5849/87/080411-04503.00 (~'~, 1987 BuUerworth & Co (Publishers) Ltd. 41 1

and application of a PCTE interface validation suite. Other ports of the Emeraude PCTE are in progress, in particular ICL is implementing it on the DRS300. These ports should all be finished by mid 1988.

The Emeraude product consists of an implementation of PCTE together with necessary associated software. The Emeraude PCTE underlying framework for IPSE construction is made up of three basic components. First, the object management system (OMS) and process control mechanisms, which manipulate the various entities in the PCTE based software development environment IPSE. Second, the distribution facilities, which allow the environment to be implemented transparently over a network of workstations and third the user interfaces, which provide the basic interaction mechanisms between user and machine.

The product also includes a standard dialogue manager (called standard virtual terminal) to provide the facilities for normal end-user and tool dialogue, including alphanumeric terminal emulation allowing for Unix compatibility and computer graphics metafile interpretation for the display of diagrams.

Also available as part of the Emeraude product, are system tools, and an initial tool set including dialogue management tools and other tools required for a project support environment for software development.

PCTE related developments

There are numerous PCTE related developments in progress. They can be classified in three general categories:

• work on the standard tool interface definition, • environments being integrated on the basis of PCTE, • research and development around PCTE.

PCTE tool interface evolution

The necessary control of evolution of the PCTE standard tool interface definition is being managed under the auspices of the PIMB. Certain evolutions are already being studied by different projects, with coordination through the technical control arm of the PIMB.

The current version of the PCTE functional specifications provides c language definitions for the interface set. Other language bindings are in progress, in particular for ADA, Common LISP and PROLOG; the ADA version is being prepared by the Commission for the European Communities, whilst the other two are being produced by the ESPRIT PACT project (PCTE added common tools) mentioned below. In addition there is an ESPRIT project VIP which is preparing a formal definition of the PCTE interface specification using the Vienna design method (VDM).

The original PCTE project is looking at some aspects of the interface definition such as the ADA binding so that tools written in ADA can access the facilities offered by PCTE, the definition and manipulation of complex or composite objects and other specific issues. The ESPRIT PAVE project is investigating the implementation of the PCTE standard interfaces on a non-Unix operating system, Vax/VMS, and is contributing, to the Unix independence of the tool interface. It is also investigating how to integrate the access to foreign tools which run outside the IPSE itself but which can be started and controlled by tools integrated in the PCTE based IPSE.

The Independent European Programme Group (IEPG TA-13) regrouping the defence ministries of European NATO members, has a programme for PCTE evolution in order to define and assess a language independent IPSE interface set for use by the civil and defence communities. An international consortium led by GIE Emeraude, with other national lead companies Selenia Industrie Elettroniche Associate, Thorn EMI Information Systems (Software Sciences), Expert Software Systems and Industrieanlagen Betriebsgesellschaft, and several other expert consultants, is defining both the requirements and the PCTE + interface specification to meet them. A draft PCTE + specification document is due before the end of 1987, the rationale and final PCTE+ specification document ready to be submitted to the PIMB by mid 1988. One area of particular importance being taken into account is security, confidentiality and integrity of information, (see Monitor July/August).

PCTE based environments

PCTE defines a tool interface corresponding to the IPSE kernel interface; a minimal IPSE is being developed by the Emeraude parent companies (Bull, Eurosoft, Syseca), most of the other PCTE definers (GEC, ICL, Olivetti, Siemens) and Systems and Management, partially funded by ESPRIT under the PACT project. Initial results are already available, and further common services and integrated tool sets will be becoming available during 1988; the user documentation is being produced by Syntagma. The minimal IPSE is scheduled to be complete early in 1989.

The PACT tool sets include:

• object management tools to access and navigate the object base,

• object management tools to define and modify the user's view of the object base structure,

• support for project planning and modelling with the COCOMO approach, resource allocation, spreadsheet and diary services,

• document preparation support for the drafting, editing and formatting of documents containing both text and

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policy graphics, with browsing and document management facilities,

• configuration management and control, • communication, both in the form of electronic mail and

teleconferencing, and gateways to other environments in the outside world,

• support for the visual creation and modification of bitmaps, in particular for the development of fonts and icons,

• administration of the PACT minimal IPSE, including archiving and network and object base administration.

In addition, programming interfaces for tools to be able to use common services will be provided:

• dialogue management and box display, • graphic display kit, • GKS, • version management, • data query and manipulation access method.

These interfaces as well as the PCTE standard interface set will be made usable not only from c language but also from Common LISP and PROLOG.

Other software development environments are being integrated on the basis of PCTE. In France, the Entreprise Programming Support Environment is being ported and re-engineered on the Emeraude PCTE. In the UK, in relation with the Alvey programme, the Eclipse IPSE and the Fortune documentation system are being imple- mented on the Emeraude PCTE.

The Eureka project EAST is basing its software factory on the Emeraude PCTE product and on the common services and tool sets being integrated by the PACT project.

Research and development

Numerous ESPRIT projects in the software technology area are using, or going to use, PCTE as their basis. For some, it is a case of using PCTE simply as the software engineering operating system on which to integrate the tools they are developing; the Prospectra project for example is producing an environment to implement a software development method based on transforming specifications written in a subset of ADA and Anna into ADA programs, and for this purpose the library manager and environmen(controller are being implemented using the object management system and user interface features of the Emeraude PCTE.

For some other ESPRIT research and development projects there is a tighter coupling with PCTE. The Aphrodite project includes the implementation of the Emeraude PCTE using the Chorus distributed system on

a network of multiprocessors. The ALF project is concerned with the integration of knowledge engineering techniques in software engineering environments to provide a basis, with a migration path from current PCTE based environments, for building initiative taking, project support environments; an ALF based IPSE can be considered as an expert system in software development. As part of the Sapphire project there will be an implementation of the proposed US military standard common APSE interface set (CAIS) on PCTE.

Conclusion

There is now widespread acceptance of PCTE in Europe: a number of software houses are basing their product policy on PCTE and a number of national or international projects are relying on the PCTE interfaces.

The Emeraude product implements PCTE and provides a commercially available basis on which to construct PCTE based IPSE. Such IPSEs are indeed soon becoming available, in particular PACT, Entreprise and Eclipse, all implemented on Emeraude will be available in 1988.

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