Software maintenance: a profile of past empirical research

The authors examine empirical software maintenance research reported from 1978 through 1987 and categorize the research according to placement, origin, and nature of research to determine what has been done in the past. A model of software maintenance is presented and used to derive classification characteristics. To aid in the investigation, an exhaustive electronic keyword search was made of abstracts found in Computer Database Abstracts and the INSPEC Computer and Control Abstracts. The full abstracts for the articles found in the searches were scrutinized by the researchers to determine whether they were appropriate. Based on this technique, summary and trend statistics are presented to characterize the state of empirical software maintenance research. Questions concerning the nature and future direction of software maintenance research are presented that aid in the process of internalizing the current state of empirical software maintenance research