Title :
Adoption of reverse engineering tools: a cognitive perspective and methodology
Author :
Zayour, Iyad ; Lethbridge, Timothy C.
Author_Institution :
Sch. of Inf. Technol. & Eng., Ottawa Univ., Ont., Canada
Abstract :
Reverse engineering tools aimed at facilitating software maintenance suffer from low adoption. Many are developed but few are used by software engineers in performing their maintenance work. We introduce an approach for tool design that is aimed at increasing the adoptability potential of tools. Our approach is based on applying cognitive analysis to identify cognitive overloads during software maintenance. A software solution is developed to target the cognitive difficulties in order to alleviate the overloads. The approach is described in the context of the implementation of a reverse engineering tool we call DynaSee. DynaSee is a tool that processes and visualises routine traces. We describe how DynaSee addresses a specific set of cognitive difficulties
Keywords :
computer aided software engineering; human factors; program visualisation; psychology; reverse engineering; software maintenance; software tools; DynaSee; adoptability potential; cognitive analysis; cognitive difficulties; cognitive methodology; cognitive overloads; reverse engineering tools adoption; routine trace visualization; software engineering; software maintenance; software tool design; Costs; Information technology; Knowledge engineering; Reverse engineering; Samarium; Software maintenance; Software performance; Software systems; Software tools; Visualization;
Conference_Titel :
Program Comprehension, 2001. IWPC 2001. Proceedings. 9th International Workshop on
Conference_Location :
Toronto, Ont.
Print_ISBN :
0-7695-1131-7
DOI :
10.1109/WPC.2001.921735
