Teresa Mallardo

Finding function clones in Web applications

Many Web applications use a mixture of HTML and scripting language code as the front-end to business services. Analogously to traditional applications, redundant code is introduced by copy-and-paste practices. Code duplication is a pathological form of software reuse because of its effects on the maintenance of large software systems. This paper describes how a simple semi-automated approach can be used to identity cloned functions within scripting code of Web applications. The results obtained from applying our approach to three Web applications show that the approach is useful for a fast selection of script function clones, and can be applied to prevent clone spreading or to remove redundant scripting code.

Tool support for geographically dispersed inspection teams

Software inspection is one of software engineerings best practices for detecting and removing defects early in the development process. However, the prevalence of manual activities and face-to-face meetings within software inspections hinder their applicability in the context of global software development, where software engineering activities are spread across multiple sites and even multiple countries. In this article, we describe a web-based tool, called the Internet-Based Inspection System (IBIS), that aims to support geographically dispersed inspection teams. On the basis of findings from empirical studies of software inspections, the IBIS tool adopts a reengineered inspection process to minimize synchronous activities and coordination problems. We present the underlying process model, how the tool is used within the inspection stages, and experiences using the IBIS tool as the enabling infrastructure for distributed software inspections. Copyright

On the Need for Mixed Media in Distributed Requirements Negotiations

Achieving agreement with respect to software requirements is a collaborative process that traditionally relies on same-time, same-place interactions. As the trend toward geographically distributed software development continues, colocated meetings are becoming increasingly problematic. Our research investigates the impact of computer-mediated communication on the performance of distributed client/developer teams involved in the collaborative development of a requirements specification. Drawing on media-selection theories, we posit that a combination of lean and rich media is needed for an effective process of requirements negotiations when stakeholders are geographically dispersed. In this paper, we present an empirical study that investigates the performance of six educational global project teams involved in a negotiation process using both asynchronous text-based and synchronous videoconferencing-based communication modes. The findings indicate that requirement negotiations were more effective when the groups conducted asynchronous structured discussions of requirement issues prior to the synchronous negotiation meeting. Asynchronous discussions were useful in resolving issues related to uncertainty in requirements, thus allowing synchronous negotiations to focus more on removing ambiguities in the requirements.

The role of asynchronous discussions in increasing the effectiveness of remote synchronous requirements negotiations

Important and yet very difficult process in software development, requirements engineering is plagued with additional challenges in the emergent dynamics of geographically distributed software teams. Our hypothesis is that a mix of lean and rich communication media are needed towards increasing the effectiveness of meetings in reaching mutual agreement when stakeholders are geographically dispersed.We studied tool-supported remote inspections in six educational global project teams in a multicultural software development environment. In this paper we present the preliminary results from comparing the effectiveness of the requirements negotiations when preceded by the asynchronous discussions to those negotiations with no prior asynchronous discussions.

Tool support for distributed inspection

Software inspection is one of the best practices for detecting and removing defects early in the software development process. We present a tool to support geographically distributed inspection teams. The tool adopts a reengineered inspection process to minimize synchronous activities and coordination problems, and a lightweight architecture to maximize easy of use and deployment.

Assessing the impact of active guidance for defect detection: a replicated experiment

Scenario-based reading (SBR) techniques have been proposed as an alternative to checklists to support the inspectors throughout the reading process in the form of operational scenarios. Many studies have been performed to compare these techniques regarding their impact on the inspector performance. However, most of the existing studies have compared generic checklists to a set of specific reading scenarios, thus confounding the effects of two SBR key factors: separation of concerns and active guidance. In a previous work we have preliminarily conducted a repeated case study at the University of Kaiserslautern to evaluate the impact of active guidance on inspection performance. Specifically, we compared reading scenarios and focused checklists, which were both characterized as being perspective-based. The only difference between the reading techniques was the active guidance provided by the reading scenarios. We now have replicated the initial study with a controlled experiment using as subjects 43 graduate students in computer science at University of Bari. We did not find evidence that active guidance in reading techniques affects the effectiveness or the efficiency of defect detection. However, inspectors showed a better acceptance of focused checklists than reading scenarios.

Supporting decisions on the adoption of re-engineering technologies

Evolving software systems requires their preliminary analysis and assessment. In particular, information on the performance and costs of software system components must be gathered for identifying the most appropriate strategy for their evolution. A critical point is finding suitable data gathering means to effectively support the decision makers. This paper presents a strategy composed of a methodological approach and supporting toolkit to help maintainers in the evolution process. The strategy integrates measurement and decision-making tools, and critiquing techniques. It analyzes software systems and identifies a set of alternative evolution approaches by mapping critiques to specific innovation actions. The proposed strategy is validated by case studies conducted with a major software enterprise and public administration.

An empirical study of the impact of asynchronous discussions on remote synchronous requirements meetings

Our research explores the combination of synchronous and asynchronous collaboration tools for global software development. In this paper we assess the impact of tool-mediated inspections to improve requirements negotiation meetings with stakeholders spread over different continents. We present the design of our investigation in an educational environment, in a course where the clients and developers in a software project were in geographically distributed locations. In particular, we studied the usefulness of asynchronous discussions in IBIS tool in enabling more effective requirements negotiations meetings. Our findings indicate that the requirements negotiations were more effective when the groups conducted asynchronous discussions prior to the synchronous negotiation meetings.

A Controlled Experiment on the Effects of Synchronicity in Remote Inspection Meetings

Traditionally, software inspection has largely relied on collocated interaction of inspectors. As companies have begun to turn to distributed software development, meeting in a room has become impractical. In this paper we report on controlled experiment to assess the effect of synchronous and asynchronous communication in remote inspection meetings.