DC SIGAda
Program for Thursday, 8 February 2001

Snacks and soft drinks will be served at 7:00 PM, the general meeting will start at 7:30 PM, followed by the program.

In the last decade, object-oriented development has become the predominant methodology for developing software. Here software systems are developed as structured collections of abstract data type implementations. Though certain aspects of traditional software measures can be applied to object-oriented software, by and large the measurements lose their original intent and are therefore no longer applicable. The chief reason being that the properties and relationships among object-oriented software are fundamentally different from those of functionally developed software. Object-oriented software utilizes the principles of localization, encapsulation, information hiding, inheritance, and abstraction. The fundamental module in object-oriented systems is the class. These classes may inherit state information and relevant operations from other classes, enabling designers to extend the definition of a class to form a new, related class.

This presentation will describe measures that can be used during development of object-oriented modules to help identify those that may be error-prone or may require additional testing to achieve quality goals needed by an organization.

Bill Pritchett is the manager of the Embedded Systems Section for DCS Corporation. At DCS, Mr. Pritchett supports the U.S. Army's Tank-Automotive Research Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) in the development of future ground combat vehicles. He is also the Product Development manager of AdaSTAT, a static analysis tool for Ada 95. Mr. Pritchett holds a B.S in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Tech and an M.S. in Computer Science from George Washington University. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D in Information Technology from George Mason University where he is researching object-oriented metrics for Ada 95. His email address is wpritchett@dcscorp.com.

Lockheed Martin Corporation
9211 Corporate Boulevard
Rockville, Maryland 20874

From all points: Get to I-270 West from the I-495 Beltway,

1. Take I-270 West to Shady Grove Exit;
2. Turn left at light;
3. Turn right on Corporate Dr (at light);
4. Turn right at end of access road (can only turn left or right);
5. Go to end of driveway.
6. The building for the meeting is on the right, across the open courtyard area. It is building #9211, as marked. Parking lots are on the left and right.
   
7. Enter main lobby. Stop at guard desk to check in.

Also, to obtain a map of the location, visit http://www.mapquest.com/, select Driving Directions for the destination address: "9211 Corporate Drive, Rockville, Md."

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