Scott R. Tilley

Structural redocumentation: a case study

Most software documentation typically describes the program at the algorithm and data-structure level. For large legacy systems, understanding the systems architecture is more important. The authors propose a method of reverse engineering through redocumentation that promises to extend the useful life of large systems. >

PROGRAMMABLE REVERSE ENGINEERING

Program understanding can be enhanced using reverse engineering technologies. The understanding process is heavily dependent on both individuals and their specific cognitive abilities, and on the set of facilities provided by the program understanding environment. Unfortunately, most reverse engineering tools provide a fixed palette of extraction, selection, and organization techniques. This paper describes a programmable approach to reverse engineering. The approach uses a scripting language that enables users to write their own routines for common reverse engineering activities, such as graph layout, metrics, and subsystem decomposition, thereby extending the capabilities of the reverse engineering toolset to better suit their needs. A programmable environment supported by this approach subsumes existing reverse engineering systems by being able to simulate facets of each one.

A reverse engineering environment based on spatial and visual software interconnection models

Reverse engineering is the process of extracting system abstractions and design information out of existing software systems. This information can then be used for subsequent development, maintenance, re-engineering, or reuse purposes. This process involves the identification of software artifacts in a particular subject system, and the aggregation of these artifacts to form more abstract system representations. This paper describes a reverse engineering environment which uses the spatial and visual information inherent in graphical representations of software systems to form the basis of a software interconnection model. This information is displayed and manipulated by the reverse engineer using an interactive graph editor to build subsystem structures out of software building blocks. The spatial component constitutes information about how a software structure looks. The coexistence of these two representations is critical to the comprehensive appreciation of the generated data, and greatly benefits subsequent analysis, processing, and decision-making.

Investigating reverse engineering technologies for the CAS program understanding project

Corporations face mounting maintenance and re-engineering costs for large legacy systems. Evolving over several years, these systems embody substantial corporate knowledge, including requirements, design decisions, and business rules. Such knowledge is difficult to recover after many years of operation, evolution, and personnel change. To address the problem of program understanding, software engineers are spending an ever-growing amount of effort on reverse engineering technologies. This paper describes the scope and results of an ongoing research project on program understanding undertaken by the IBM Toronto Software Solutions Laboratory Centre for Advanced Studies (CAS). The project involves a team from CAS and five research groups working cooperatively on complementary reverse engineering approaches. All the groups are using the source code of SQL/DS™ (a multimillion-line relational database system) as the reference legacy system. Also discussed is an approach adopted to integrate the various tools under a single reverse engineering environment.

Domain-retargetable reverse engineering

A user programmable approach to reverse engineering is described. The approach uses a scripting language that enables users to write their own routines for these activities, making the system domain-retargetable. The environment supported by this programmable approach subsumes existing reverse engineering systems by being able to simulate facets of each one and provides a smooth transition from semi-automatic to automatic reverse engineering.<<ETX>>

Documenting software systems with views

Software professionals rely on internal documentation as an aid in understanding programs. Unfortunately, the documentation for most programs is usually out-of-date and cannot be trusted. Without it, the only reliable and objective information is the source code itself. Personnel must spend an inordinate amount of time exploring the system by looking at low-level source code to gain an understanding of its functionality. One way of producing accurate documentation for an existing software system is through reverse engineering. This paper outlines a reverse engineering methodology for building subsystem structures out of software building blocks, and describes how documenting a software system with views created by this process can produce numerous benefits. It addresses primarily the needs of the software engineer and technical manager as document users.

Personalized information structures

When moving linear documentation into a hypertext system, it is important to distinguish between referential and structural links; both are needed to model the literary paradigm. In particular, structural links facilitate navigation, tailoring, and information retrieval by imposing structure on large documents. Without them, users face the well-known lost in hyperspace syndrome due to disorientation caused by a tangle of referential links in the hypertext web. To be truly e ective, hypertext systems should support a level of customization at least equivalent to paper-based documentation systems. The hyperdocuments structure must be malleable and user-customizable. It should be the reader who decides what is the best document architecture|not the writer. This paper describes a exible reverseengineering approach to creating, representing, and structuring online documentation. The approach permits the construction and maintenance of personalized information structures: multiple virtual documents over the same hypertext database.

INFO: a simple document annotation facility

INFO is a simple hypertext facility Scott Tilley* Hausi Muller Department of Computer Science University of Victoria P.O. Box 3055 Victoria, BC

Reverse engineering questionnaire

This is a questionnaire on program understanding and reverse engineering. It may be filled out manually or on-line. The results of the questionnaire will be used to guide the research of the two authors, both of whom are Ph.D. students working in this area. Copies of the resulting report will be mailed to all who participate, and a summary of the results will be published in an appropriate forum.

Personalized information structures (solution session)

As online information continues to grow at an exponential rate our ability to access this information effectively does not, and users are often frustrated by how difficult it is to locate the right information quickly and easily. So-called personalization technology is a potential solution to this information overload problem: by automatically learning about the needs and preferences of users, personalized information access solutions have the potential to offer users a more proactive and intelligent form of information access that is sensitive to their long-term preferences and current needs. In this paper, we document two case-studies of the use of personalization techniques to support information browsing and search. In addition, we consider the inevitable privacy issues that go hand-in-hand with profiling and personalization techniques and highlight the importance of striking the right balance between privacy and personalization when it comes to the development and deployment of practical systems.