Title :
Software evolution in componentware - a practical approach
Author_Institution :
Inst. fur Inf., Tech. Univ. Munchen, Germany
Abstract :
Industrial software projects are not based on a top-down development process relying on refinement but use a more iterative and incremental approach with respect to changing requirements. We call this an “evolutionary” approach. In this paper, we present the basic concepts of a suitable overall componentware methodology with respect to software evolution. We clarify the difference between refinement steps and evolution steps in an document-based development process. Based on this, we introduce the concept of requirements/assurance contracts to explicitly model the dependencies between the development documents. This helps developers to track and manage the software evolution process. A short example shows the usefulness of the presented concepts and introduces a description technique for requirements/assurance contracts in componentware
Keywords :
contracts; object-oriented programming; software prototyping; subroutines; assurance contracts; changing requirements; componentware; contract description technique; development document dependency modelling; document-based development process; evolution steps; evolutionary approach; industrial software projects; iterative incremental approach; refinement steps; requirements contracts; software evolution; Binary decision diagrams; Contracts; Electrical capacitance tomography; Information systems; Iterative methods; Software engineering; Software prototyping; Software standards; Standards development;
Conference_Titel :
Software Engineering Conference, 2000. Proceedings. 2000 Australian
Conference_Location :
Canberra, ACT
Print_ISBN :
0-7695-0631-3
DOI :
10.1109/ASWEC.2000.844553