The present invention provides a method for supporting data driving a
software process. The method comprises receiving, from a user, input of a
class of an object of a non-primitive data type; and providing to the
user a description of the collection of attributes necessary to construct
an instance of the object, based only on the class of the object. The
step of receiving the class of the object is free of receiving a
pre-existing instance of the data type. In further related embodiments,
the method further comprises receiving, in a single user step, user input
of defining attribute data necessary to create the instance of the object
and set it into a desired state; and creating and initializing the
instance of the object using the defining attribute data; wherein the
defining attribute data does not include a pre-existing instance of the
data type.