Silvio Romero de Lemos Meira

From specification to experimentation: a software component search engine architecture

This paper presents a software component search engine, from the early specification and design steps to two experiments performed to evaluate its performance. After the experience gained from the use of this first version, several improvements were introduced. The current version of the engine combines text mining and facet-based search. The experiments indicated, so far, that using these two techniques together is better than using them separately. From the experience obtained in these experiments and in industrial tests, we point out possible improvements and future research directions, which are presented and discussed at the end of the paper.

The domain analysis concept revisited: a practical approach

Domain analysis has been identified as a key factor in the development of reusable software. However, for domain analysis to become a practical approach we need to understand the conceptual foundations of the process and to produce a unambiguous definition in the form of specific techniques. This paper presents a practical approach for domain analysis based on a well defined set of guidelines and metrics. A preliminary industrial case study was performed in order to identify the viability of the approach.

Evaluating Domain Design Approaches Using Systematic Review

Software Product Lines are growing as a systematic way for achieving reuse in software companies. It involves three processes: domain engineering, application engineeringand management. In domain engineering, assets that will be reused by products are developed, composing the core assets. In this context, the product line architecture, also called Domain Specific Software Architecture(DSSA), is an essential member in the collection of core assets. A good DSSA increases the probability of the success of applications that will be instantiated from it. In order to design a good DSSA, a process should be followed to manage domains variability and commonality. On the other hand, companies that are moving from single system development to software product lines need systematic activities for taking advantage of existing assets to develop a DSSA. Thus, this paper presents a systematic review on domain design approaches, which can be useful for companies to understand the current scenario, and to choose a more suitable one or adapt them for their needs.

A software component quality framework

One of the major problems with Component-Based Software Engineering (CBSE) is the quality of the components used in a system. The reliability of a component-based software system depends on the reliability of the components that is made of. In CBSE, the proper search, selection and evaluation process of components is considered the cornerstone for the development of any effective component-based system. So far the software industry was concentrated on the functional aspects of components, leaving aside the difficult task of assessing their quality. In this way, we propose a software component quality framework to evaluate the quality of software components in an efficient way. Moreover, an experimental study was accomplished in order to evaluate the viability of the proposed framework.

Toward a Code Search Engine Based on the State-of-Art and Practice

Software engineering and reuse-oriented tools have been studied along the last years, aiming to provide help in the software development. With the importance of reuse growing significantly, effective software reuse tools and environments started to be needed. This paper presents and discusses some works that comprise many issues related to source code search tools, covered by university and industry since 90s until today. In the end of the paper, a set of requirements is presented, integrating the features that can be found in most works of the area, serving as a basis for future work toward an effective source code search tool.

Using parliamentary Brazilian open data to improve transparency and public participation in Brazil

Government concerns about transparency date from 1957, but current technological advances and real-time worldwide communications hold great promise to transform accountability, transparency, citizen participation and collaboration, in addition to offering better public services, by increasing efficiency and effectiveness and decreasing corruption in government. With these goals in mind, this paper describes Meu Congresso Nacional (My National Congress), a first prize winner application developed during the First Brazilian Parliament Hackathon focused on parliamentarians transparency by obtaining and analyzing data from several sources and displaying them on a user-friendly website. In addition, based on this development experience, this paper discusses the difficulties and challenges of developing applications based on Brazilian government data.

Towards an effective integrated reuse environment

A fundamental premise for any type of reuse is the knowledge about the existence of the object to be reused. Such knowledge may already be available, for example, due to the past experience of the subject of the reuse action or may be obtained through knowledge dissemination. Information retrieval is a key mechanism for allowing a uniform dissemination of the knowledge about available reusable objects.The instantiation of this problem to the software reuse field is the subject of this work. The synergy among the software reuse and information retrieval fields is exploited in the formulation, implementation and evaluation of an integrated environment that aims at promoting a greater reuse activity level on the quest for developing software with better quality while consuming fewer resources.

Brazilian government open data: implementation, challenges, and potential opportunities

Technological advances and real-time worldwide communications hold great promise for transforming the efficiency and effectiveness of public services through the ease of publishing and access to government public information or through the offer of new kinds of services. In this paper, we describe two initiatives, Rio Inteligente (Smart Rio) and Cidadão Recifense (Recife Citizen), which are based on Brazilian open-data repositories from the cities of Rio de Janeiro and Recife and deliver services for citizens and tourists, mainly (i) a health-unit finder based on user location and (ii) an online vaccination card. Based on the development experience of these two similar applications that use completely independent open-data repositories, this paper discusses the current state of Brazilian open-data initiatives, their challenges and difficulties, and draws some considerations towards a framework to build applications based on government data.

An Experimental Study on Requirements Engineering for Software Product Lines

Requirements Engineering (RE) activities in Software Product Lines (SPL) are more complex, because they involve more products and stakeholders, and require attention to variabilities and commonalities. Thus, the SPL development should be supported by an appropriate REprocess for its context, which assures usability, effectiveness and efficiency in its activities. In order to analyze these issues, an experimental study was conducted to evaluate the viability of a proposal process. The results of the study showed that the use of an appropriate support tool increases the efficiency of the process. We also observed that subjects’ experience in industrial projects and RE influences the usability of the process.

Performing Domain Analysis for Model-Driven Software Reuse

This paper presents a domain analysis approach for model-driven domain engineering projects. The objective is to address the problem of identifying which parts of a domain can be automated using model-driven development techniques. We argue that this task should be performed together with domain analysis. In this sense, the paper presents the main activities, guidelines, inputs and outputs of this task. It concludes by presenting the iterative life cycle approach for dealing with complex domains.