Reuse reengineering and validation via concept assignment

The first step in a software reuse reengineering process is to analyze the structural characteristics of the existing software so as to produce software component sets, each of which is a candidate for clustering and reengineering into a reusable module. This step is founded on one or more candidature criteria and the cost of the following steps depends on their quality. The notions of completeness and adequacy as applied to candidature criteria are introduced, the need for an adequacy validation process before they are applied on a software system is outlined. An adequate validation process founded on the assignment of a concept to the candidate modules is proposed, and the results of an application of this process are described and discussed