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Patterns of Component Evolution

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Software Composition (SC 2007)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 4829))

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Abstract

Contemporary software systems are composed of many components, which, in general, undergo phased and incremental development. In order to facilitate the corresponding construction process, it is important that the development team in charge has a good understanding of how individual software components typically evolve. Furthermore, software engineers need to be able to recognize abnormal patterns of growth with respect to size, structure, and complexity of the components and the resulting composite. Only if a development team understands the processes that underpin the evolution of software systems, will they be able to make better development choices. In this paper, we analyze recurring structural and evolutionary patterns that we have observed in public-domain software systems built using object-oriented programming languages. Based on our analysis, we discuss common growth patterns found in present-day component-based software systems and illustrate simple means to aid developers in achieving a better understanding of those patterns. As a consequence, we hope to raise the awareness level in the community on how component-based software systems tend to naturally evolve.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Information & Communication Technologies, Swinburne University of Technology, P.O. Box 218, Hawthorn, VIC 3122, Australia

    Rajesh Vasa & Jean-Guy Schneider

  2. Department of Computer Science, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, USA

    Markus Lumpe

Authors
  1. Rajesh Vasa
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  2. Markus Lumpe
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  3. Jean-Guy Schneider
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Editor information

Markus Lumpe Wim Vanderperren

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© 2007 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Vasa, R., Lumpe, M., Schneider, JG. (2007). Patterns of Component Evolution. In: Lumpe, M., Vanderperren, W. (eds) Software Composition. SC 2007. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4829. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-77351-1_19

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-77351-1_19

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-77350-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-77351-1

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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