Evaluating the Surgeon´s Assistant: results of a pilot study

The author reports on an empirical evaluation of decomposition slicing as a maintenance method as implemented in the Surgeon´s Assistant. The improvement-oriented software maintenance model presented by H. D. Rombach and B.T. Ulery (1988) is used as the foundation. A reprise of software process modeling, a short introduction to software maintenance process modeling, and the definition of the evaluation model are presented. Decomposition slicing induces changes in the standard maintenance model; the evaluation attempts to measure the effectiveness of the induced model as compared with the standard one. The evaluation is a pilot study. A preliminary comparison is made using certain defined metrics. This yields some insights into the strengths and weaknesses of the tool and its applicability in certain scenarios