Evolution of a Software System: Interaction, Interfaces and Applications in the XYZ GeoBench

This paper investigates the direction software systems should go using, as a case study, the XYZ GeoBench. The XYZ GeoBench (eXperimentalGeometrY Zurich) is a workbench for experimental geometric computation. We identify three areas of the GeoBench where extensions have been most fruitful: Interactive usability, random- and test-data-generation and interfaces to the outside world. Furthermore we report some of the current uses and applications. We believe that these areas are also important for other software systems created in academia if they want to reach a wider audience. The XYZ GeoBench software for the Macintosh including documentation and source code (for non-commercial purposes) is available by anonymous ftp from neptune.inf.ethz.ch (129.132.101.33) in directory XYZ.