La métaphore du dossier

In this paper, we propose a development technique for information systems, called "the folder metaphor". The goal of this technique is to allow a balanced treatment of the viewpoints of users and software engineers. This technique is supported by MétaGen, a tool that combines metamodeling and knowledge acquisition techniques to generate high-level development systems. Two aspects are taken into account to model the user viewpoint: functional and organizational. The first one relies on the notion of folder (view as a data store) and on events and management rules that apply to folders. The organizational aspect allows to describe the various system users and to assign them the skills that were extracted from the folder management analysis. The software engineer viewpoint covers the set of technical resources (frameworks, transactional managers, etc.) that are needed to implement the system. Our technique preserves the independence of managers, organizers and software engineers while insuring a fully operational realization. In this particular case, MétaGen was used to generate multi-agent distributed applications implemented in Java or in Smalltalk.