Semantics of form-oriented analysis
Gerald Weber · Universitätsbibliothek der FU Berlin Hochschulschriftenstelle u. Dokumentenserver · 2003
In this thesis we present Form-Oriented Analysis, a new analysis technique for an ubiquitous type of business applications. We define a precise semantic class of applications we call submit/response style applications, under which typical enterprise applications and web applications can be subsumed. Applications in this class are characterized by their type of user interface. The user of a submit/response style application fills out an electronic form, submits it to the system and receives a response page with data and new forms. The user then again submits data, partly under usage of the previously received data and so forth. We model such a submit/response style application with a bipartite finite state machine. This bipartite state machine is depicted in the key artifact of Form-Oriented Analysis, the form chart. Our analysis technique is firmly based on existing well-understood analysis notions and techniques, and consequently extends these methods. This thesis introduces Form-Oriented Analysis by defining and explaining the visual artifacts of our technique. Specifically, the form chart is defined as a class diagram, over which the object net is always a path. We give formal semantics of the artifacts based on UML. Form-Oriented Analysis fosters a design according to established architectures for enterprise applications. Our new method is accompanied by a fully implemented tool called Gently, which allows the automatic generation of prototypes from a form-oriented specification.