Maurizio Pighin, University of Udine, Italy Venezia, marzo 2001 Workshop SALADIN Slide 1 Maurizio Pighin Dipartimento di Matematica e Informatica Università di Udine, Italy Venezia, Marzo 2001 Using IR Techniques Catalogue, Reuse and Maintain Existing Software Objects

Maurizio Pighin, University of Udine, Italy Venezia, marzo 2001 Workshop SALADIN Slide 2 Introduction Using IR tools to catalogue software life-cycle Work done up-to-date –First Model Definition –Experimental Analysis –Result Assessment Future perspectives –Model extension to specification –Definition of mobility feature –New Experimental Analysis

Maurizio Pighin, University of Udine, Italy Venezia, marzo 2001 Workshop SALADIN Slide 3 Introduction Existing SW Objects –Specifications –Data-Model –Code –Test Chain –… Software Object Catalogue –Repository of heterogeneous information

Maurizio Pighin, University of Udine, Italy Venezia, marzo 2001 Workshop SALADIN Slide 4 Introduction Difficulties –Catalogue organization definition –Adopted methodology to fill it –Supported techniques to analyze it –… with Existing Software Objects –The economic break-even point is very high Novel approach –Understand how heterogeneous information must be organized –Application of Information Retrieval techniques –Experimental evaluation on these techniques

Maurizio Pighin, University of Udine, Italy Venezia, marzo 2001 Workshop SALADIN Slide 5 The Proposed Methodology First Step –Verification on code-objects the soundness of proposal ALICE (AppLication of Information Retrieval to Catalogues of Existing software) is the Experimental System produced

Maurizio Pighin, University of Udine, Italy Venezia, marzo 2001 Workshop SALADIN Slide 6 The Proposed Methodology Search Functionalities which must be at disposal of user Structure of objects which must be catalogued task-analysis of Sw-engineer work permits us to built a basic functionalities model

Maurizio Pighin, University of Udine, Italy Venezia, marzo 2001 Workshop SALADIN Slide 7 The Proposed Methodology Four basic search methodologies on a Software Catalogue –semantics-driven search –data-definition driven search –structure-driven search –syntax-driven search These search mechanisms can be combined in more complex strategies From mechanism we found the feature which defines the keys of catalogue search

Maurizio Pighin, University of Udine, Italy Venezia, marzo 2001 Workshop SALADIN Slide 8 The Proposed Methodology The structure can automatically be built by SW-Objects and can be indexed in the catalogue Depending from object format and from requested feature specialized parsers must be built which analyze the objects end extract interesting feature references

Maurizio Pighin, University of Udine, Italy Venezia, marzo 2001 Workshop SALADIN Slide 9 The IR tool ALICE is built on Z-PRISE (statistical engine) We built the specialized parser which analyzes and indexes an industrial SW package (about C code lines) We defined a specialized client which easily interacts with query, features and the ranked list extracted by Z-Prise engine

Maurizio Pighin, University of Udine, Italy Venezia, marzo 2001 Workshop SALADIN Slide 10

Maurizio Pighin, University of Udine, Italy Venezia, marzo 2001 Workshop SALADIN Slide 11 The experiment Ten students, one expert Three management problems 20 minutes for every problem Operation objective analysis –SW-Monitor with operation-logAnalisi soggettiva Operation Subjective analysis –Questionnaries Semantic differential Likert Scale (used the know-how of project IRNLI-Information Retrieval, Natural Language Interface)

Maurizio Pighin, University of Udine, Italy Venezia, marzo 2001 Workshop SALADIN Slide 12 Results

Maurizio Pighin, University of Udine, Italy Venezia, marzo 2001 Workshop SALADIN Slide 13 Le Valutazioni Score mechanism Interesting results about –Effectiveness –Easy of use –Efficiency The system seem powerful and sound This part of work is presented at –International Conference on Software Maintenance and Reuse, CSMR 2001, Lisboa –Information Software Technology, Vol 51/2-3, Elsevier Science Publications, Clare (IR), 2000, pp

Maurizio Pighin, University of Udine, Italy Venezia, marzo 2001 Workshop SALADIN Slide 14 The Actual/Future Steps Attention on other SW objects –Specification mechanism UML E-R Informal specification Actual activities –Feature definition Particular attention at mobility aspects (PhD-Thesis Gian Pietro Picco – Milan Politecnico team) –Mobility code and data –Security –Traslation –Communication –…..

Maurizio Pighin, University of Udine, Italy Venezia, marzo 2001 Workshop SALADIN Slide 15 Reference schemas

Maurizio Pighin, University of Udine, Italy Venezia, marzo 2001 Workshop SALADIN Slide 16 I Passi Attuali/Futuri … Continue Activity –Definition of Data Base on which work (Ericsson - UTMS specification Team) –Application of more specification schemas –Parser (feature) definition –Search interface definition –Search schemas (feature) definition –Test on a significant Data Base –Assessment of results

Maurizio Pighin, University of Udine, Italy Venezia, marzo 2001 Workshop SALADIN Slide 17 The potential results (Reasonable) Automatic Cataloguing of existing specifications Homogenization of specifications defined in heterogeneously (like UTMS specification team) Use of powerful cataloguing and search IR tools