The user group requested that the process of customization be automated. The users also informed us that they wanted the new system to take advantage of the new capabilities that were emerging with graphical user interfaces. The old degree-audit system had a character based client front end. It was decided that the new system make available a presentation layer that was graphical. With the Web becoming increasingly mature, this layer is now the Web.
Major requirements come in a variety of shapes and forms.
Some requirements are a simple list of courses in which all courses in the list must be taken. In other requirements there are sets of courses available in which the student may choose a particular set only. Sometimes there are minimum grade or GPA requirements for the whole major or for part of the major. Often there are complex choices between courses. It was evident that the language should be able to handle such types of specifications.