No abstract available.

Most existing software development processes, methods, and tools are weak in supporting architecture modeling and component reuse. This paper introduces concepts and principles behind Component-Based Software Engineering (CBSE), the style of system construction by component assembly. A process model and supporting technologies are described. Central to this model is explicit representation of software components and component-based architectures.

Technology transfer does not happen spontaneously after research results and prototypes have been demonstrated. Researchers need to get more actively involved in "pushing technology out of the door." This paper describes an experiment that we conducted in 1993 to facilitate technology transfer. There are two aspects of this experiment: the integration of a re-engineering process into an existing software development and maintenance organization; and the evaluation of a research prototype in a "real world" situation. The experiment resulted in recommendations on adaptation of the tool functionality and on a configuration for use by different teams within the target organization.>

The paper describes an approach to software reuse which is under development and evaluation at Andersen Consulting. Instead of restricting reuse to just code, we are exploring reuse of architectures that include component interfaces, interconnections between components, and platform configuration. The approach assumes that first a desired architecture is chosen and tailored according to the constraints at hand. Then, appropriate components are retrieved from a repository, subjected to restricted modifications if necessary and "glued" together following the architectural guidelines. Finally, a version of a system is automatically packaged from the selected components and the architectural specifications. The paper presents the approach and some initial experiments in the design of an interface specification language and an environment in which modules can be interconnected and their interface specifications used to determining the integrity of the connections.>

The automated recognition of abstract high-level conceptual information or concepts, which can greatly aid the understanding of programs and therefore support many software maintenance and reengineering activities, is considered. An approach to automated concept recognition and its application to maintenance-related program transformations are described. A unique characteristic of this approach is that transformations of code can be expressed as transformations of abstract concepts. This significantly elevates the level of transformation specifications.>

An approach is described that applies a transformation paradigm to automate software maintenance activities. The approach to code-to-code (horizontal) transformation is based on a high-level understanding of the programming and application domain concepts represented by the code. A very unique characteristic of this approach is its use of concept recognition, the understanding and abstraction of high-level programming and application domain entities in programs, as the basis for transformations. A program transformation tool has been developed to support the migration of a large manufacturing control system written in COBOL.>

The special problems of software re-engineering and technologies and approaches that specifically address these re-engineering problems are considered. Particular attention is given to approaches for analyzing and abstracting the functionality of old code, converting software to work with new languages or dialects, translating large systems, defining appropriate roles for the user of highly automated tools, and identifying the automatable steps in a large-scale project to re-engineer assembly language code. An attempt is made to indicate on the basis of actual experience what aspects of the re-engineering process seem to be most amenable to automation and what productivity gains can be expected.>

In this paper, we address issues related to the reengineering of large-scale software systems. The key to the software re-engineering activity is the ability to recover (re-engineer) lost or otherwise unavailable information concerning specification and system design decisions from the information available in the existing system source code. Subsequently, a forward engineering step may reimplement and possibly upgrade the existing systems. This paper describes the underlying princi- ples of a knowlkige-based Software Re-engineering Environment (SRE) which is intended to provide high-level support to various software maintenance and re-engineering activities.

No abstract available.

The authors address the use of knowledge-based techniques in providing high-level support for program understanding and debugging activities. An intelligent program analysis/debugging tool, called PAT, is described which is expected to provide human-expert-level assistance to programmers in general program understanding and debugging tasks. PAT is characterized by its use of a knowledge base of coding and debugging heuristics represented as program plans. With the help of the encoded expert knowledge, this tool comprehends a given program without a separate specification from the programmer or an execution of the program. PAT then generates paraphrases about the intentions implied in the given code and diagnoses bugs that are commonly related to those intentions.>