DOCSLIB.ORG

Software Archaeology

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Software Archaeology software construction Editors: Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas I The Pragmatic Programmers I www.pragmaticprogrammer.com Software Archaeology Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas his isn’t programming, this is archaeol- This analogy is such a compelling and po- ogy!” the programmer complained, tentially useful one that Dave, Andy, Brian wading through the ancient rubble of Marick, and Ward Cunningham held a some particularly crufty piece of code. workshop on Software Archaeology at (One of our favorite jargon words: OOPSLA 2001 (the annual ACM Confer- Twww.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/entry/ ence on Object-Oriented Programming, Sys- crufty.html.) It’s a pretty good analogy, actu- tems, Languages, and Applications). The ally. In real archaeology, you’re investigating participants discussed common problems of trying to understand someone else’s code and shared helpful techniques and tips (see the “Tools and Techniques” sidebar). Roll up your sleeves What can you do when someone dumps 250k lines of source code on your desk and simply says, “Fix this”? Take your first cue from real archaeologists and inventory the site: make sure you actually have all the source code needed to build the system. Next, you must make sure the site is secure. On a real dig, you might need to shore up the some situation, trying to understand what site with plywood and braces to ensure it does- you’re looking at and how it all fits together. n’t cave in on you. We have some equivalent To do this, you must be careful to preserve safety measures: make sure the version control the artifacts you find and respect and under- system is stable and accurate (CVS is a popu- stand the cultural forces that produced them. lar choice; see www.cvshome.org). Verify that But we don’t have to wait a thousand the procedures used to build the software are years to try to comprehend unfathomable ar- complete, reliable, and repeatable (see the Jan- tifacts; code becomes legacy code just about uary/February issue’s column for more on this as soon as it’s written, and suddenly we have topic). exactly the same issues as the archaeologists: Be aware of build dependency issues: in What are we looking at? How does it fit in many cases, unless you build from scratch, with the rest of the world? And what were you’re never really sure of the results. If they thinking? It seems we’re always in the you’re faced with build time measured in position of reading someone else’s code: ei- hours, with multiple platforms, then the in- ther as part of a code review, or trying to cus- vestment in accurate dependency manage- tomize a piece of open source software, or ment might be a necessity, not a luxury. fixing a bug in code that we’ve inherited. Draw a map as you begin exploring the 22 IEEE SOFTWARE March/April 2002 0740-7459/02/$17.00 © 2002 IEEE SOFTWARE CONSTRUCTION code. (Remember playing Colossal insight into the changes that were re- editing the code directly (AspectJ for Cave? You are in a maze of twisty lit- quired over the years. Java is available at www.aspectj.org). tle passages, all alike….) Keep de- Of course, unless you can prove oth- For instance, suppose you want to tailed notes as you discover priceless erwise, there’s no guarantee that the generate a trace log of every database artifacts and suspicious trapdoors. routine you’re examining is even being call in the system. Using something UML diagrams might be handy (on called. How much of the source con- like Aspect-J, you could specify what paper—don’t get distracted by a tains code put in for a future that never constitutes a database call (such as fancy CASE tool unless you’re al- arrived? Static analysis of the code can every method named “db*’” in a ready proficient), but so too are sim- prove whether a routine is being used in particular directory) and specify the ple notes. If there are more than one most languages. Some IDEs can help code to insert. of you on the project, consider using with this task, or you can write ad hoc Be careful, though. Introducing a Wiki or similar tool to share your tools in your favorite scripting lan- any extra code this way might pro- notes (you can find the original Wiki guage. As always, you should prove as- duce a “Heisenbug,” a bug intro- at www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiWiki- sumptions you make about the code. In duced by the act of debugging. One Web and a popular implementation this case, adding specific unit tests helps solution to deal with this issue is to atwww.usemod.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl. prove—and continue to prove—what a build in the instrumentation in the As you look for specific keywords, routine is doing (see www.junit.org for first place, when the original devel- routine names, and such, use the Java and www.xprogramming.org for opers are first building and testing search capabilities in your integrated other languages). the software. Of course, this brings development environment (IDE), the By now, you’ve probably started its own set of risks. One of the par- Tags feature in some editors, or tools to understand some of the terminol- ticipants described an ancient but such as Grep from the command line. ogy that the original developers used. still used mainframe program that For larger projects, you’ll need larger Wouldn’t it be great to stumble only works if the tracing statements tools: you can use indexing engines across a Rosetta stone for your pro- are left in. such as Glimpse or SWISH++ (simple ject that would help you translate its Whether diagnostic tracing and Web indexing system for humans) to vocabulary? If there isn’t one, you instrumentation are added originally index a large source code base for can start a glossary yourself as part or introduced later via aspects, you fast searching. of your note-taking. One of the first might want to pay attention to what things you might uncover is that you are adding, and where. For in- The mummy’s curse there are discrepancies in the mean- stance, say you want to add code that Many ancient tombs were ru- ing of terms from different sources. records the start of a transaction. If mored to be cursed. In the software Which version does the code use? you find yourself doing that in 17 world, the incantation for many of places, this might indicate a struc- these curses starts with “we’ll fix it Duck blinds and aerial views tural problem with the code—and a later.” Later never comes for the In some cases, you want to ob- potential answer to the problem original developers, and we’re left serve the dynamics of the running you’re trying to solve. with the curse. (Of course, we never system without ravaging the source Instead of hiding in a “duck put things off, do we?) code. One excellent idea from the blind” and getting the view on the Another form of curse is found in workshop was to use aspects to sys- ground, you might want to consider misleading or incorrect names and tematically introduce tracing state- an aerial view of the site. Synoptic, comments that help us misunder- ments into the code base without plotting, and visualization tools pro- stand the code we’re reading. It’s vide quick, high-level summaries that dangerous to assume that the code or might visually indicate an anomaly in comments are being completely the code’s static structure, in the dy- truthful. Just because a routine is namic trace of its execution, or in the named readSystem is no guarantee data it handles. For instance, Ward that it isn’t writing a megabyte of Cunningham’s Signature Survey data to the disk. Instead of hiding in a method (http://c2.com/doc/Signa- Programmers rarely use this sort “duck blind” and getting tureSurvey) reduces each source file of cognitive dissonance on purpose; the view on the ground, to a single line of the punctuation. it’s usually a result of historical acci- It’s a surprisingly powerful way of dent. But that can also be a valuable you might want to seeing a file’s structure. You can also clue: how did the code get this way, consider an aerial view use visualization tools to plot data and why? Digging beneath these lay- from the volumes of tracing informa- ers of gunk, cruft, and patch upon of the site. tion languishing in text files. patch, you might still be able to see As with real archaeology, it pays to the original system’s shape and gain be meticulous. Maintain a deliberate March/April 2002 IEEE SOFTWARE 23 SOFTWARE CONSTRUCTION ately identified, and the build Tools and Techniques should be automatic and reliable. I Leave a Rosetta stone. The project The workshop identified these analysis tools and techniques: glossary was useful for you as you learned the domain jargon; it will I Scripting languages for be doubly useful for those who –ad hoc programs to build static reports (included by and so on) come after you. –filtering diagnostic output I Make a simple, high-level treasure I Ongoing documentation in basic HTML pages or Wikis map. Honor the “DRY” principle: I Synoptic signature analysis, statistical analysis, and visualization tools Don’t duplicate information that’s I Reverse-engineering tools such as Together’s ControlCenter in the code in comments or in a I Operating-system-level tracing via truss and strace design document.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • What Every Engineer Should Know About Software Engineering
    7228_C000.fm Page v Tuesday, March 20, 2007 6:04 PM WHAT EVERY ENGINEER SHOULD KNOW ABOUT SOFTWARE ENGINEERING Phillip A. Laplante Boca Raton London New York CRC Press is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2007 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC 7228_C000.fm Page vi Tuesday, March 20, 2007 6:04 PM CRC Press Taylor & Francis Group 6000 Broken Sound Parkway NW, Suite 300 Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742 © 2007 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC CRC Press is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business No claim to original U.S. Government works Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 International Standard Book Number-10: 0-8493-7228-3 (Softcover) International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-8493-7228-5 (Softcover) This book contains information obtained from authentic and highly regarded sources. Reprinted material is quoted with permission, and sources are indicated. A wide variety of references are listed. Reasonable efforts have been made to publish reliable data and information, but the author and the publisher cannot assume responsibility for the validity of all materials or for the conse- quences of their use. No part of this book may be reprinted, reproduced, transmitted, or utilized in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying, microfilming, and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publishers. For permission to photocopy or use material electronically from this work, please access www.
    [Show full text]
  • Software Development Process for Teams with Low Expertise, High-Rotation and No- Architect: a Systematic Mapping Study
    Software Development Process for Teams with Low Expertise, High-Rotation and No- Architect: A Systematic Mapping Study Paulina Valencia Franco Angelina Espinoza, Humberto Cervantes Maceda Electrical Engineering Department, Electrical Engineering Department, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Iztapalapa, México Iztapalapa, México Email: paulatina63 –at- gmail.com Email: aespinoza, hcm -at- xanum.uam.mx Abstract —To have a well-organized software team is Process) [1], TSP (Team Software Process) [2], PSP (Personal fundamental to achieve the business goals in a software Software Process) [3], XP (Extreme Programming) [4] or development project, such as: functionality and quality in the SCRUM [5]. planned times. However, the teams present a particular problematic that are common in both industrial and academic These methodologies, for their nature, are more or less settings, this paper focuses on three: a) Teams with members prepared to face the team features previously mentioned, but with low expertise on methodologies, b) Teams with high member the real big challenge is to combine these models, to get an rotations, or c) Teams lacking a software architect. One adapted process model for overcoming all the three previous approach to address this situation is to define a software features in development teams. Particularly, these kinds of development process, adapted from the adaptability teams are commonly found in academic environments where characteristics and benefits offered by several methodologies there are not resources to hire a technical leader, nor currently used, in order that the development team obtains the experienced staff, so that development teams are mainly expected results in terms of productivity, time and quality of the comprised of students who are in constant rotation.
    [Show full text]
  • Adapting the Harris Matrix for Software Stratigraphy
    Adapting the Harris Matrix for Software Stratigraphy Andrew Reinhard Edward Harris’s (1979) landmark work, Principles of preservation of these born-digital archaeological Archaeological Stratigraphy, from which sprouted sites. the idea and practice of the Harris matrix, became This is not a new concern for people who work within the broad my windmill (or albatross) in 2017 as I attempted to umbrella of “digital humanities.” “Software archaeology”—the leverage its data visualization technique onto a digital attempt to reverse-engineer poorly documented (or undocu- mented) software in order to restore and preserve functionality— archaeological site. This visualization would not only has existed formally for over 15 years.1 Digital preservation is allow archaeologists to understand the composition also not a new idea and forms a border of software archaeology; namely, what to do with software post-use or post-“excavation.”2 and history of a digital built environment—something None of the software archaeology approaches, however, treat important to the emerging field of digital heritage— software as archaeological sites in the traditional sense, and I wanted to see what would happen if I conducted a truly archaeo- but also would contribute to the conservation and logical investigation of a software application using a tool known ABSTRACT In 1979, Edward C. Harris invented and published his eponymous matrix for visualizing stratigraphy, creating an indispensable tool for generations of archaeologists. When presenting his matrix, Harris also detailed his four laws of archaeological stratigraphy: superposition, original horizontal, original continuity, and stratigraphic succession. In 2017, I created the first stratigraphic matrix for software, using as a test the 2016 video game No Man’s Sky (Hello Games).
    [Show full text]
  • Software Preservation Benefits Framework
    Software Preservation Benefits framework CC443D006-1.0 7 December 2010 Cover + 74 pages Neil Chue Hong Steve Crouch Simon Hettrick Tim Parkinson Matt Shreeve Software Sustainability Institute Curtis+Cartwright Consulting Ltd The University of Edinburgh Main Office: Surrey Technology Centre, Registered in England: number 3707458 James Clerk Maxwell Building Surrey Research Park, Guildford Mayfield Road Surrey GU2 7YG Registered address: Edinburgh EH9 3JZ Baker Tilly, The Clock House, tel: +44 (0)1483 685020 140 London Road, Guildford, tel: +44 (0) 131 650 5030 fax: +44 (0)1483 685021 Surrey GU1 1UW email: [email protected] email: [email protected] web: http://www.software.ac.uk web: http://www.curtiscartwright.co.uk Summary of framework 1 An investigation of software preservation has been carried out by Curtis+Cartwright Consulting Limited, in partnership with the Software Sustainability Institute (SSI), on behalf of the JISC.1 The aim of the study was to raise awareness and build capacity throughout the Further and Higher Education (FE/HE) sector to engage with preservation issues as part of the process of software development. Part of this involved examining the purpose and benefits of employing preservation measures in relation to software, both at the development stage and retrospectively to legacy software. The study built on the JISC-funded ‘Significant Properties of Software’ study2 that produced an excellent introduction and comprehensive framework to software preservation. 2 This is a framework document that assists developer groups and their sponsoring bodies to understand and gauge the benefits or disbenefits of allocating effort to: – ensuring that preservation measures are built into software development processes; – actively preserving legacy software.
    [Show full text]
  • Sustainable Software Development Through Overlapping Pair Rotation Todd Sedano Paul Ralph Cécile Péraire
    Carnegie Mellon University From the SelectedWorks of Cécile Péraire September, 2016 Sustainable Software Development through Overlapping Pair Rotation Todd Sedano Paul Ralph Cécile Péraire Available at: https://works.bepress.com/cecile_peraire/35/ Sustainable Software Development through Overlapping Pair Rotation Todd Sedano Paul Ralph Cécile Péraire Pivotal University of Auckland Carnegie Mellon Unveristy 3495 Deer Creak Road Auckland Silicon Valley Campus Palo Alto, CA New Zealand Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] ABSTRACT Keywords Context: Conventional wisdom says that team disruptions Extreme Programming, Grounded Theory, Code ownership, (like team churn) should be avoided. However, we have ob- Sustainable software development served software development projects that succeed despite high disruption. 1. INTRODUCTION Objective: The purpose of this paper is to understand Imagine being a software development manager when one how to develop software effectively, even in the face of team of your top engineers, Dakota, gives notice and is moving on disruption. to a new job opportunity. You are simultaneously excited Method: We followed Constructivist Grounded Theory. because the new position provides a great career opportu- We conducted participant-observation of several projects at nity for someone you respect, yet distressed that her depar- Pivotal (a software development company), and interviewed ture may exacerbate your own project. How will the team 21 software engineers, interaction designers, and product overcome this disruption? Your investment in this engineer managers. The researchers iteratively sampled and analyzed and her entire accumulated knowledge about the project is the collected data until achieving theoretical saturation. evaporating. Dakota developed some of the systems' tricki- Results: This paper introduces a descriptive theory of Sus- est, most important components.
    [Show full text]
  • Software Guide the Computer with Growth Potential
    February 1980 Volume 3 Issue 2 NEW: Professional software guide The computer with growth potential The System Three is Cromemco's best selling small business computer. It's easy to see why. Not only is it ideal for the first time computer user. But perhaps more important, it can be expanded into a comprehensive business facility servicing many varied company requirements. Single -user system You can start small. A 64K computer with a megabyte of floppy disc storage costs under £4,000.* Perhaps your initial reason for choosing Cromemco was its flexible database management system-ideal for client records, order processing, sales analysis, inventory control, and many more business uses; or you might have required the full screen word processing system, capable of printing up to 20 original letters an hour; possibly you needed Cobol, Basic or Fortran to develop your own customised packages. Single -user System Three, with 64K memory, 2 discs, terminal and printer. Easy to use Ideal for small businesses. Whatever the reason, you were highly impressed with the ease with which your Will it expand? Multi-user system very first computer application got off the It was then you discovered that the Fortunately, we can readily expand your ground. So you added another. And terminal is the limiting factor, because ofCromemco. Unlike other makers' systems, another. And pretty soon quite a lot of the time taken to input data. If only you all we need to do is add some memory and a company business was running on your could connect a second terminal you ®TU-ART interface, and the multi-user Cromemco.
    [Show full text]
  • Table of Contents
    A Comprehensive Introduction to Vista Operating System Table of Contents Chapter 1 - Windows Vista Chapter 2 - Development of Windows Vista Chapter 3 - Features New to Windows Vista Chapter 4 - Technical Features New to Windows Vista Chapter 5 - Security and Safety Features New to Windows Vista Chapter 6 - Windows Vista Editions Chapter 7 - Criticism of Windows Vista Chapter 8 - Windows Vista Networking Technologies Chapter 9 -WT Vista Transformation Pack _____________________ WORLD TECHNOLOGIES _____________________ Abstraction and Closure in Computer Science Table of Contents Chapter 1 - Abstraction (Computer Science) Chapter 2 - Closure (Computer Science) Chapter 3 - Control Flow and Structured Programming Chapter 4 - Abstract Data Type and Object (Computer Science) Chapter 5 - Levels of Abstraction Chapter 6 - Anonymous Function WT _____________________ WORLD TECHNOLOGIES _____________________ Advanced Linux Operating Systems Table of Contents Chapter 1 - Introduction to Linux Chapter 2 - Linux Kernel Chapter 3 - History of Linux Chapter 4 - Linux Adoption Chapter 5 - Linux Distribution Chapter 6 - SCO-Linux Controversies Chapter 7 - GNU/Linux Naming Controversy Chapter 8 -WT Criticism of Desktop Linux _____________________ WORLD TECHNOLOGIES _____________________ Advanced Software Testing Table of Contents Chapter 1 - Software Testing Chapter 2 - Application Programming Interface and Code Coverage Chapter 3 - Fault Injection and Mutation Testing Chapter 4 - Exploratory Testing, Fuzz Testing and Equivalence Partitioning Chapter 5
    [Show full text]
  • Archaeology of the Amsterdam Digital City; Why Digital Data Are Dynamic and Should Be Treated Accordingly
    UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) Archaeology of the Amsterdam digital city; why digital data are dynamic and should be treated accordingly Alberts, G.; Went, M.; Jansma, R. DOI 10.1080/24701475.2017.1309852 Publication date 2017 Document Version Final published version Published in Internet Histories: Digital Technology, Culture and Society License CC BY-NC-ND Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Alberts, G., Went, M., & Jansma, R. (2017). Archaeology of the Amsterdam digital city; why digital data are dynamic and should be treated accordingly. Internet Histories: Digital Technology, Culture and Society , 1(1-2), 146-159 . https://doi.org/10.1080/24701475.2017.1309852 General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (https://dare.uva.nl) Download date:28 Sep 2021 INTERNET HISTORIES, 2017 VOL.
    [Show full text]
  • Reverse Engineering and the Archaeology of the Modern World
    Forum Kritische Archäologie 5 (2016) Streitraum: Reverse Engineering Reverse engineering and the archaeology of the modern world Gabriel Moshenska Zitiervorschlag Gabriel Moshenska. 2016. Reverse engineering and the archaeology of the modern world. Forum Kritische Archäologie 5:16-28. URI http://www.kritischearchaeologie.de/repositorium/fka/2016_5_2_Moshenska.pdf DOI 10.6105/journal.fka.2016.5.2 ISSN 2194-346X Dieser Beitrag steht unter der Creative Commons Lizenz CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (Namensnennung – Nicht kommer- ziell – Keine Bearbeitung) International. Sie erlaubt den Download und die Weiterverteilung des Werkes / Inhaltes unter Nennung des Namens des Autors, jedoch keinerlei Bearbeitung oder kommerzielle Nutzung. Weitere Informationen zu der Lizenz finden Sie unter: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/deed.de. Forum Kritische Archäologie 5 (2016) Streitraum: Reverse Engineering Reverse engineering and the archaeology of the modern world Gabriel Moshenska UCL Institute of Archaeology Abstract This paper explores the practical and conceptual connections between the archaeology of post-industrial socie- ties and the process of reverse engineering. It explores common themes such as industrial decline, the loss of tech- nical expertise, and the growing problem of obsolescence both in technological infrastructure and in the manage- ment of digital data. To illuminate the connections between the two fields it considers several examples. These include the implicit applications of reverse engineering in archaeology, such as chemical analyses of Egyptian mummification and alchemical equipment, as well as the use of archaeological concepts and terminologies in re- verse engineering. The concept of archaeology as reverse engineering is examined with regard to military aircraft, post-industrial landscapes and so-called ‘non-places’.
    [Show full text]
  • The Agile Planning Horizon in Professional Software Development
    $40 The Agile Planning Horizon in Professional Software Development Managing at the dynamic boundary where business necessities meet software development realities. David A. Penny, Ph.D. 15 September, 2012 (12th edition) Exclusive use of this document for csc444h at the University of Toronto, winter term 2015, has been granted by the author. Copyright © 2012 by David A. Penny © 2012 by Dr. David A. Penny, Toronto, Ontario, Canada All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the author. Exclusive use of this document for csc444h at the University of Toronto, winter term 2015, has been granted by the author. ii Copyright © 2012 by David A. Penny ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dr. Penny has had a mixed industrial and academic career spanning over 25 years involvement in software development. As a Ph.D. student at the University of Toronto specializing in languages, operating systems, and software engineering, Dr. Penny was involved in software production initiatives including chemical-physics simulation software, robotic control software, variable-precision numeric libraries, language run-time environments, the Object-Oriented Turing IDE, the Mini Tunis teaching operating system, the Software Landscape, a program verification system, and the Polyx multi- processor operating system. Following graduation, Dr. Penny took a position at IBM working on an integrated development environment for C++ on the AIX platform. Dr. Penny then joined Algorithmics Incorporated becoming its CTO and VP Software Development. He led the development of RiskWatch™, the industry's leading middle-office financial risk management software for global banks, and related products.
    [Show full text]
  • How Are Conceptual Models Used in Industrial Software Development? a Descriptive Survey
    How are Conceptual Models used in Industrial Software Development? A Descriptive Survey Harald Störrle QAware GmbH München, Germany [email protected] ABSTRACT [18, p. v] in the context of the Model Driven Engineering (MDE)1 Background: There is a controversy about the relevance, role, and paradigm which, they believe, “has the potential to greatly reduce utility of models, modeling, and modeling languages in industry. development time”, and “will help us develop better software systems For instance, while some consider UML as the “lingua franca of faster.” [6, p. 8]. Furthermore, they claim that “MDA is not a vision of software engineering”, others claim that “the majority [of industry some future [...] it has already proven itself many times over in diverse practitioners] simply do not use UML.” application domains” (ibid). Note that this quote is from 2004. Objective: We aspire to evolve this debate to differentiate the cir- However, Mohagheghi and Dehlen famously asked “Where is the cumstances of modeling, and the degrees of formality of models. proof?” in their 2008 landmark paper [29]. Even MDA-supporters Method: We have conducted an online survey among industry had to admit that “adoption of this approach has been surprisingly practitioners and asked them how and for what purposes they use slow” [38, p. 513]. Various contributions have since studied success models. The raw (anonymized) survey data is published online. cases and failure cases of MDA adoption in an attempt to explain ex- Results: We find that models are widely used in industry, and actly when and why MDA projects fail or succeed [20–22; 41; 42]).
    [Show full text]
  • Using Software Archaeology to Measure Knowledge Loss in Software Projects Due to Developer Turnover ∗
    Proceedings of the 42nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2009 Using Software Archaeology To Measure Knowledge Loss in Software Projects Due To Developer Turnover ∗ Daniel Izquierdo-Cortazar, Gregorio Robles, Felipe Ortega and Jesus M. Gonzalez-Barahona GSyC/LibreSoft Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (Madrid, Spain) dizquierdo, grex, jfelipe, jgb @gsyc.escet.urjc.es { } Abstract The lifespan of a software system can range from sev- eral years to decades. In such scenarios, the develop- Developer turnover can result in a major problem ment team in charge of the software may suffer from when developing software. When senior developers turnover: old developers leave while new developers abandon a software project, they leave a knowledge gap join the project. With the abandonment of old, senior that has to be managed. In addition, new (junior) devel- developers, projects lose human resources experienced opers require some time in order to achieve the desired both with the details of the software system and with the level of productivity. In this paper, we present a method- organizational and cultural circumstances of the project. ology to measure the effect of knowledge loss due to de- New developers will need some time to become famil- veloper turnover in software projects. For a given soft- iar with both issues. In this regard, the time for volun- ware project, we measure the quantity of code that has teers to become core contributors to FLOSS 1 projects been authored by developers that do not belong to the has been measured to be 30 months in mean, since their current development team, which we define as orphaned first contribution [11].
    [Show full text]