PATTERN LANGUAGE

Modeling, Managing, Making it Right.

April 2006

The Software Engineering Institute is forming the IPSS Working Group, a three-year project to collaboratively explore the unique challenges of improving processes in small settings. (IPSS is short for "Improving Processes in Small Settings.")

According to the Small Business Administration, small businesses in the U.S. account for 99 percent of all employer firms, employ 50 percent of all private sector employees, and hold 41 percent of all high technology jobs. Small businesses are recognized as a critical component of the US economy. In other countries, small business is the economy. With the global marketplace expanding into regions previously not considered competitive, regional support centers and governments around the world are approaching the SEI looking for ways to propel their small software and systems businesses to a globally competitive status. Likewise, large organizations with small businesses in their supply chain are approaching the SEI for help.

With IPSS, the SEI seeks to increase awareness of process excellence as an enabler to global competitiveness, demonstrate effective approaches to process improvement for the small business, and provide tools for process improvement that are easily applied by small businesses. To participate, contact the IPSS Working Group.

Posted by Jon Erickson at 08:50 AM  Permalink |

The Third SEI Software Architecture Workshop for Educators will be held on June 27-29, 2006, in Los Angeles. This workshop is a three-day forum for sharing Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute (SEI) software architecture technology with computer science, information systems, and software engineering educators who would like to include software architecture in their course or who would like to include SEI concepts and methods in existing courses that address software architecture. There is no charge for the workshop. Attendees are responsible for their own travel and lodging expenses. The registration deadline is June 16, 2006. Participation will be limited to 30 attendees, accepted on a first-come, first-served basis.

Posted by Jon Erickson at 09:13 AM  Permalink |

As part of its Sun's NetBeans Enterprise Pack, Sun Microsystems is set to
open source its 2-way UML modeler, XML infrastructure, and visual editing tools. The software will be part of the upcoming Java Studio Enterprise 9.0 release. The feature set being released includes:

* 2-way UML modeler for architecting and reverse engineering complex enterprise applications. UML tools generate diagrams and keep them in sync with source changes without adding markers to the source code. Full support for the current version of the UML specification is provided.
* A set of XML infrastructure and visual editing tools which help enable developers to manage complexity in their XML files. These tools are intended to provide a base that can be extended by third parties.
* Orchestration and SOA tools are included for building composite applications. These leading-edge SOA tools leverage the business integration technology and expertise from Sun's acquisition of SeeBeyond.

By open sourcing these tools, Sun is continuing to put the heat on Eclipse and its Eclipse Tools Project.

Posted by Jon Erickson at 10:15 PM  Permalink |