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, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

software engineer Software engineering is a branch of both computer science and engineering focused on designing, developing, testing, and maintaining software applications. It involves applying engineering principles and computer programming expertise to develop ...

and software methodologist,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 is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–United States border, Canada–U.S. maritime border ...

, Shlaer received a BS in

Mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

in 1960 from

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

and started a graduate study at the

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public university, public research university and member of the Group of Eight (Australian universities), Group of Eight, located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton, A ...

. At Stanford Shlaer had started programming in Fortran and assembler. 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 Laboratory, laboratories of the United States Department of Energy National Laboratories, United States Department of Energy ...

. In 1977 she became project manager in software development at

Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL, Berkeley Lab) is a federally funded research and development center in the hills of Berkeley, California, United States. Established in 1931 by the University of California (UC), the laboratory is spo ...

, where she guided the development of a new Integrated Control System for the

Bay Area Rapid Transit Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is a rapid transit system serving the San Francisco Bay Area in California. BART serves 50 stations along six routes and of track, including eBART, a spur line running to Antioch, and Oakland Airport Connecto ...

system. At Lawrence Berkeley, Laboratory Shlaer met Stephen J. Mellor, 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 membe ...

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 designing and Implementation, implementing a software solution to Computer user satisfaction, satisfy a User (computing), user. The process is more encompassing than Computer programming, programming, wri ...

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 ...

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 computing, assembly language (alternatively 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 bet ...

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 supervising the work of a Project team, team to achieve all project goals within the given constraints. This information is usually described in project initiation documentation, project documentation, crea ...

. 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 Stephen J. Mellor. Prentice Hall, 1988. * 1991. ''Object Life Cycles: Modeling the World In States''. With Stephen J. Mellor. Prentice Hall, 1991. Articles, a selection: * 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 Stephen J. Mellor 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 Stanford University alumni American software engineers Real-time computing 1998 deaths American women computer scientists 20th-century American women scientists 20th-century American scientists