Sally hashim Shlaer (December 3, 1938 – November 12, 1998) was an American

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

software engineer Software engineering is a systematic engineering approach to software development. A software engineer is a person who applies the principles of software engineering to design, develop, maintain, test, and evaluate computer software. The term ''p ...

and

methodologist In its most common sense, methodology is the study of research methods. However, the term can also refer to the methods themselves or to the philosophical discussion of associated background assumptions. A method is a structured procedure for bri ...

,Sally Shlaer
by J.L. Pimsleur, 1999 known as co-developer of the 1980s

Shlaer–Mellor method The Shlaer–Mellor method, also known as Object-Oriented Systems Analysis (OOSA) or Object-Oriented Analysis (OOA) is an object-oriented software development methodology introduced by Sally Shlaer and Stephen Mellor in 1988. The method makes the ...

for software development.

Biography

Born in

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

, Shlaer received a BS in

Mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

in 1960 from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

and started a graduate study at the

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and ...

. At Stanford Shlaer had started programming in Fortran and

assembler Assembler may refer to: Arts and media * Nobukazu Takemura, avant-garde electronic musician, stage name Assembler * Assemblers, a fictional race in the ''Star Wars'' universe * Assemblers, an alternative name of the superhero group Champions of A ...

. In 1965 she started as a software engineer at

Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy (DOE), located a short distance northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, ...

. In 1977 she became project manager in software development at

Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), commonly referred to as the Berkeley Lab, is a United States national laboratory that is owned by, and conducts scientific research on behalf of, the United States Department of Energy. Located in ...

, where she guided the development of a new Integrated Control System for the Bay Area Rapid Transit System. At Lawrence Berkeley, Laboratory Shlaer met

Stephen J. Mellor Stephen J. Mellor (born 1952) is an American computer scientist, developer of the Ward–Mellor method for real-time computing, the Shlaer–Mellor method, and Executable UML, and signatory to the Agile Manifesto. Biography Mellor rece ...

, with whom she developed the

for software development. In 1985 together they founded the software development firm Project Technology Inc. Shlaer was also a Fellows of the

Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...

Work

Software engineering

Shlaer started her software engineering career at Los Alamos National Laboratory as a programmer. She designed and implemented an operating system to operate an electron accelerator to work in real time, and this project became her masterpiece.M. Page-Jones (1999)
Sally Shlaer Obituary
in ''The C++ report''. Vol 11. p. 82 At Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, she led a team of

software developer Software development is the process of conceiving, specifying, designing, Computer programming, programming, software documentation, documenting, software testing, testing, and Software bugs, bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applic ...

s to build a new

control system A control system manages, commands, directs, or regulates the behavior of other devices or systems using control loops. It can range from a single home heating controller using a thermostat controlling a domestic boiler to large industrial c ...

for the subway of the Bay Area Rapid Transit system. The existing control system software was considered impossible to continue using, making replacement necessary. Working with Steve Mellor, they replaced the original Fortran and

assembly language In computer programming, assembly language (or assembler language, or symbolic machine code), often referred to simply as Assembly and commonly abbreviated as ASM or asm, is any low-level programming language with a very strong correspondence be ...

code with new code, going from seventy thousand lines to two thousand. This analysis has since been called "legendary".

Shlaer–Mellor method

In the developing of a new control system for the Bay Area Rapid Transit, Shlaer and Mellor sought to regulate mechanisms of software development and began to design new methods of

project management Project management is the process of leading the work of a team to achieve all project goals within the given constraints. This information is usually described in project documentation, created at the beginning of the development process. Th ...

. This resulted in the development of the

, which in the new millennium has evolved into

Executable UML Executable UML (xtUML or xUML) is both a software development method and a highly abstract software language. It was described for the first time in 2002 in the book "Executable UML: A Foundation for Model-Driven Architecture". The language "combine ...

.Mellor, S; Balcer, M: "Executable UML: A foundation for model-driven architecture", Preface, Addison Wesley, 2002

Publications

* 1988. ''Object Oriented Systems Analysis: Modeling the World in Data''. With

. Prentice Hall, 1988. * 1991. ''Object Life Cycles: Modeling the World In States''. With

. Prentice Hall, 1991. Articles, a selection:Sally Shlaer
DBLP Bibliography Server * 1992.
A Comparison of OOA and OMT
Project Technology, Inc. White paper * 1996.
The Shlaer-Mellor Method
. Project Technology, Inc. White paper * 1997.
Recursive Design of an Application-Independent Architecture
With

in ''

IEEE Software ''IEEE Software'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed magazine and scientific journal published by the IEEE Computer Society covering all aspects of software engineering, processes, and practices. Its mission is to be the best source of reliable, useful ...

'', January 1997.

References

External links

Sally Shlaer
Obituary by J.L. Pimsleur, 1999

by M. Page-Jones, 1999

Up-Close and Personal Conversation o

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shlaer, Sally 1938 births American computer scientists Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Stanford University alumni American software engineers Real-time computing 1998 deaths American women computer scientists 20th-century American women scientists 20th-century American scientists