Maurizio Pighin University of Udine Italy Venezia 14

Maurizio Pighin, University of Udine, Italy Venezia, 14 -16 Marzo 2001 Using IR Techniques Catalogue, Reuse and Maintain Existing Software Objects Maurizio Pighin Dipartimento di Matematica e Informatica Università di Udine, Italy e-mail: pighin@dimi. uniud. it Venezia, 14 -16 marzo 2001 Workshop SALADIN Slide 1

Maurizio Pighin, University of Udine, Italy 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 Venezia, 14 -16 marzo 2001 Workshop SALADIN Slide 2

Maurizio Pighin, University of Udine, Italy Introduction • Existing SW Objects – – – Specifications Data-Model Code Test Chain … • Software Object Catalogue – Repository of heterogeneous information Venezia, 14 -16 marzo 2001 Workshop SALADIN Slide 3

Maurizio Pighin, University of Udine, Italy 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 Venezia, 14 -16 marzo 2001 Workshop SALADIN Slide 4

Maurizio Pighin, University of Udine, Italy The Proposed Methodology • First Step – Verification on code-objects the soundness of proposal • ALICE (App. Lication of Information Retrieval to Catalogues of Existing software) is the Experimental System produced Venezia, 14 -16 marzo 2001 Workshop SALADIN Slide 5

Maurizio Pighin, University of Udine, Italy 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 Venezia, 14 -16 marzo 2001 Workshop SALADIN Slide 6

Maurizio Pighin, University of Udine, Italy 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 Venezia, 14 -16 marzo 2001 Workshop SALADIN Slide 7

Maurizio Pighin, University of Udine, Italy 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 Venezia, 14 -16 marzo 2001 Workshop SALADIN Slide 8

Maurizio Pighin, University of Udine, Italy 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 150. 000 “C” code lines) • We defined a specialized client which easily interacts with query, features and the ranked list extracted by Z-Prise engine Venezia, 14 -16 marzo 2001 Workshop SALADIN Slide 9

Maurizio Pighin, University of Udine, Italy Venezia, 14 -16 marzo 2001 Workshop SALADIN Slide 10

Maurizio Pighin, University of Udine, Italy The experiment • • Ten students, one expert Three management problems 20 minutes for every problem Operation objective analysis – SW-Monitor with operation-log. Analisi soggettiva • Operation Subjective analysis – Questionnaries • Semantic differential • Likert Scale (used the know-how of project IRNLI-Information Retrieval, Natural Language Interface) Venezia, 14 -16 marzo 2001 Workshop SALADIN Slide 11

Maurizio Pighin, University of Udine, Italy Results Venezia, 14 -16 marzo 2001 Workshop SALADIN Slide 12

Maurizio Pighin, University of Udine, Italy 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. 131 -138 Venezia, 14 -16 marzo 2001 Workshop SALADIN Slide 13

Maurizio Pighin, University of Udine, Italy 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 (Ph. D-Thesis Gian Pietro Picco – Milan Politecnico team) – – – Venezia, 14 -16 marzo 2001 Mobility code and data Security Traslation Communication …. . Workshop SALADIN Slide 14

Maurizio Pighin, University of Udine, Italy Reference schemas Venezia, 14 -16 marzo 2001 Workshop SALADIN Slide 15

Maurizio Pighin, University of Udine, Italy 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 Venezia, 14 -16 marzo 2001 Workshop SALADIN Slide 16

Maurizio Pighin, University of Udine, Italy 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 Venezia, 14 -16 marzo 2001 Workshop SALADIN Slide 17