Reusable Software Component Retrieval: Part I

1
Reusable Software Component Retrieval Part I

• Taciana Amorim Vanderlei
• tav_at_cin.ufpe.br

2
Content

• Motivation
• Component Retrieval - Historic
• Conclusion
• References

3
Motivation
Browsing
4
Motivation
5
Motivation
Searching
6
Component Retrieval - Historic

• McIllroy, 1967
• Proposed the idea of a software components
  catalog from which software parts could be
  assembled, much as is done with mechanical and
  electronic components.

To reuse a software component, you first have to
find it.
7
Component Retrieval - Historic

• Prieto-Diaz, R. and P. Freeman, 1987
• Proposes a faceted classification scheme based on
  reusability-related attributes and a selection
  mechanism as a partial solution to the software
  reuse problem.
• Prieto-Diaz, R., 1991
• But was in decade of 90, with Prieto-Diaz, that
  the research became more intensive
• Support reuser's selection process and
  development of a standard vocabulary for software
  attributes.

8
Decade of 90

• Retrieval methods
• Enumerated classification
• Inflexibility
• Problems with understanding large hierarchies.
• Faceted classification
• Flexible
• Precise
• Better suited for large, continuously expanding
  collection
• Hard for users to find the right combination of
  terms.
• Free-text indexing (automatic indexing).
• Simple to build and retrieval
• Need large bodies of text to become statistically
  accurate.

9
Decade of 90

• Controlled vocabulary
• Faceted classification
• Indexing.
• Uncontrolled vocabulary
• Free-text indexing.

10
Component Retrieval - Historic

• Y.S. Maarek, D. M. Berry, and G.E. Kaiser, 1991
• GURU
• A tool that automatically assembles conceptually
  structured software libraries from a set of
  unindexed and unorganized software components.
• Free-text indexing approach - cost,
  transportability and scalability.

11
Component Retrieval - Historic

• R. D. Banker, R. J. Kauffman, and D. Zweig,
  1993
• A repository-based integrated CASE tool called
  High Productivity Systems (HPS)
• First Boston Corporation and Carter Hawley Hale
  Information Services.
• Productivity and quality.
• Defray the costs of the construction and testing
• Speed the implementation of new systems
• Be leveraged across projects and areas of the
  firm in support of multiple businesses.

12
Component Retrieval - Historic

• S. Henninger, 1994
• Constructing effective queries is as important as
  or more important than the retrieval algorithm
  used.
• CodeFinder
• Retrieval system that combines retrieval by
  reformulation and spreading activation to help
  users find information
• Reduces the vocabulary problem.

13
Component Retrieval - Historic

• S. Henninger, 1994

• Gráfico
• Desenhar Círculo
• (x,y,raio,raio interno)

• Anel
• Rosquinha
• Pneu
• Direção

14
Component Retrieval - Historic

• The probability of two people choosing the same
  keyword for the objects is between 10 and 20.
  Using 15 aliases will achieve 6080 agreement,
  and 30 aliases can get up to 90 agreement
  Furnas et al., 1987.
• One of the problems with an unlimited aliasing
  approach is the potential of precision problems
  Gomez et al., 1990.

15
Component Retrieval - Historic

• Amy Moormann Zaremski and Jeannette M., 1995
• Signature matching
• Complementary approach to more-traditional
  information retrieval techniques
• Method for organizing, navigating through, and
  retrieving from software libraries.

16
Component Retrieval - Historic

• J. M. Neighbors, 1996
• General techniques for finding the locus of a
  component in an existing large system.
• Extracted either by hand or by an advanced
  knowledge-based system.
• Reported techniques that worked on only three
  systems.
• Draco, a knowledge-based forward engineering
  system.

17
Component Retrieval - Historic

• Isakowitz, T. and R. J. Kauffman, 1996
• Conceptual and architectural bases for specifying
  a repository search tool which automates the
  process of repository search.
• The tools combine two different capabilities
• ORCA (Object Reuse Classification Analyzer)
• AMHYRST (Automated Hypertext Reuse Search Tool).

18
Component Retrieval - Historic

• 60 of software reuse involved objects
  written and reused by the same developer, and
  85-90 of software reuse involved objects
  constructed by members of a project team within
  the same application. Isakowitz, T. and R. J.
  Kauffman, 1996

19
Component Retrieval - Historic

• H. Mili , E. Ah-Ki , R. Godin and H. Mcheick,
  1997
• Implementation and experimental comparison of two
  such methods
• Free-text based retrieval
• Keyword-based retrieval methods.
• ClassServer, an experimental library tool
  developed at the University of Québec at Montréal
  to explore issues in software reuse.

20
Component Retrieval - Historic

• Document retrieval experiments have shown that
  controlled vocabulary-based indexing and
  retrieval yielded better recall and precision
  than plain-text search, although the difference
  hardly justifies the extra costs involved in the
  first one.
• The significant difference is recall performance.

21
Component Retrieval - Historic

• Problems with repository of software reuse
• Costly classification
• Domain analysis efforts.
• Henninger S., 1997
• Utilizes minimal repository structure
• Improves the repository while people use it
• Best results.
• PEEL semiautomatically identify reusable
  components.
• CodeFinder

22
Conclusion

• For a reuse library tool to be successful, the
  cost of reusing has to be perceived by potential
  reusers as being significantly less than that of
  developing from scratch Scott N. Woodfield,
  David W. Embley, and Del T. Scott, 1987, and the
  cost of performing searches is only one of
  several costs associated with an instance of
  reuse H. Mili, F. Mili, and A. Mili, 1995.

23
References

• Prieto-Diaz, R. and P. Freeman, Classifying
  Software for Reusability, IEEE Software, Vol. 4,
  No. 1, January 1987, pp.6-16.
• Prieto-Diaz, R., Implementing Faceted
  Classification for Software Reuse,
  Communications of the ACM, Vol. 34, No. 5, May
  1991, pp. 88-97.
• G. Caldiera and V. Basili, Identifying and
  Qualifying Reusable Software Componente, IEEE
  Computer, Vol. 24, No. 2, February 1991, pp.
  61-71.
• Y.S. Maarek, D. M. Berry, and G.E. Kaiser, An
  Information Retrieval Approach for Automatically
  Constructing Software Libraries, IEEE
  Transactions on Software Engineering, Vol. 17,
  No. 8, August 1991, pp. 800-813.

24
References

• R. D. Banker, R. J. Kauffman, and D. Zweig,
  Repository Evaluation of Software Reuse, IEEE
  Transactions on Software Engineering, Vol.19, No.
  4, April 1993, pp. 379-389.
• S. Henninger, "Using Iterative Refinement to Find
  Reusable Software," IEEE Software, Vol. 11, No.
  5, September 1994, pp. 48-59.
• Amy Moormann Zaremski , Jeannette M. Wing,
  Signature matching a tool for using software
  libraries, ACM Transactions on Software
  Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM), v.4 n.2,
  p.146-170, April 1995.
• J. M. Neighbors, "Finding Reusable Software
  Components in Large Systems," 3rd Working
  Conference on Reverse Engineering (WCRE '96),
  p.2, November 1996, Monterey, CA.
• Isakowitz, T., R. J. Kauffman, "Supporting Search
  for Reusable Software Objects," IEEE Transactions
  on Software Engineering, Vol. 22, No. 6, July
  1996, pp. 407-423.

25
References

• Hafedh Mili , Estelle Ah-Ki , Robert Godin ,
  Hamid Mcheick, Another nail to the coffin of
  faceted controlled-vocabulary component
  classification and retrieval, ACM SIGSOFT
  Software Engineering Notes, v.22 n.3, p.89-98,
  May 1997.
• Henninger, S., An Evolutionary Approach to
  Constructing Effective Software Reuse
  Repositories, ACM Transactions on Software
  Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM), v.6 n.2,
  p.111-140, April 1997.
• Scott N. Woodfield, David W. Embley, and Del T.
  Scott, Can Programmers Reuse Software, IEEE
  Software, pp. 52-59, July 1987.
• Hafedh Mili, Fatma Mili, and Ali Mili, Reusing
  Software Issues and Research Directions, IEEE
  Transactions on Software Engineering, vol. 21,
  no. 6, pp. 528-562, June 1995.

26
Reusable Software Component Retrieval Part I

• Questions?