This research is concerned with inheritance as used in object-oriented database. More specifically, partial bi-directional inheritance among classes is examined. In partial inheritance, a class can inherit a proper subset of instance variables from another class. Two subclasses of the same superclass do not need to inherit the same proper subset of instance variables from their superclass. Bi-directional partial inheritance allows a class to inherit instance variables from its subclass. The prototype of an object-oriented database that supports both full and partial bi-directional inheritance among classes was developed on top of an existing relational database management system. The prototype was tested with two database applications. One database application needs full and partial inheritance. The second database application required bi-directional inheritance. The result of this testing suggests both advantages and disadvantages of partial bi-directional inheritance. Future areas of research are also suggested.

The C Navigational System (CNS) is a proposed programming environment for the C programming language. The introduction covers the major influences of programming environments and the components of a programming environment. The system is designed to support the design, coding and maintenance phases of software development. CNS provides multiple views to both the source and documentation for a programming project. User-defined and system-defined links allow the source and documentation to be hierarchically searched. CNS also creates a history list and function interface for each function in a module. The final chapter compares CNS and several other programming environments (Microscope, Rn, Cedar, PECAN, and Marvel).