Modulaser: A Tool for Conceptual Analysis of Software Systems

Iaakov Exman, Phillip Katz

2016

Abstract

Modulaser is a software tool which produces a Modularity Matrix, to analyse the design of a software system given by its executable code. However, besides the concrete practical purposes of Modulaser, it is important to understand its techniques in a deeper sense. It is immediately clear that it describes the system in a higher abstraction level than the executable code, as the Modularity Matrix follows an implicit class diagram. But behind classes there are concepts. Thus, the ultimate purpose of Modulaser is conceptual analysis. This paper explains the ideas, describe Modulaser in these terms, and illustrate it by a series of case studies.

References

  1. Baldwin, C.Y. and Clark, K.B., 2000. Design Rules, Vol. I. The Power of Modularity, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA.
  2. BCEL, 2016. Byte Code Engineering Library, version 6.0, An Apache Commons Project. Web site: https://commons.apache.org/proper/commons-bcel/
  3. Brooks, F.P., 1995. The Mythical Man-Month - Essays in Software Engineering - Anniversary Edition, Addison-Wesley, Boston, MA, USA.
  4. Brooks, F.P., 2010. The Design of Design: Essays from a Computer Scientist, Addison-Wesley, Boston, MA, USA.
  5. Cole, R. and Tilley, T., 2003. “Conceptual Analysis of Software Structure”, Proc. 15th Int. Conf. on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering, pp. 726- 733.
  6. Clements, P., Kazman, R, and Klein, M., 2001. Evaluating Software Architecture: Methods and Case Studies. Addison-Wesley, Boston, MA, USA.
  7. Exman, I., 2012a. “Linear Software Models”, Proc. GTSE 1st SEMAT Workshop on a General Theory of Software Engineering, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.http://semat.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/GTSE_2012_Proceedings.pdf.
  8. Exman, I., 2012b. “Linear Software Models”, video presentation of paper (Exman, 2012a) at GTSE 2012, KTH, Stockholm, Sweden, Web site: http://www.you tube.com/watch?v=EJfzArH8-ls.
  9. Exman, I. 2014a. “Linear Software Models: Standard Modularity Highlights Residual Coupling”, Int. Journal of Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering, Vol. 24, pp. 183-210, DOI: 10.1142/- S0218194014500089.
  10. Exman, I. and Iskusnov, D., 2014b. “Apogee: Application Ontology Generation from Domain Ontologies”, in Proc. SKY'2014 Int. Workshop on Software Knowledge, pp. 31-42, ScitePress, Portugal.
  11. Exman, I. and Speicher, D., 2015. “Linear Software Models: Equivalence”, in Proc. ICSOFT'2015 Int. Conference on Software Technology, pp. 109-116, ScitePress, Portugal. DOI = 10.5220/0005557701090 116
  12. Exman, I., 2016. “The Modularity Matrix as a Source of Software Conceptual Integrity”, SKY'2016 7th Int. Workshop on Software Knowledge, Porto, Portugal, accepted for publication.
  13. Gamma, E., Helm, R., Johnson, R. and Vlissides, J., 1995. Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable ObjectOriented Software, Addison-Wesley, Boston, MA, USA.
  14. Kazman, R., 1996. “Tool Support for Architecture Analysis and Design”, in ISAW'96 Proc. 2nd Int. Software Architecture Workshop, pp. 94-97, ACM, New York, NY, USA. DOI: 10.1145/243327.243618
  15. Kazman, R. and Carriere, S.J., 1997. “Playing Detective: Reconstructing Software Architecture from Available Evidence.” Technical Report CMU/SEI-97-TR-010, Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
Download


Paper Citation


in Harvard Style

Exman I. and Katz P. (2016). Modulaser: A Tool for Conceptual Analysis of Software Systems . In Proceedings of the 7th International Workshop on Software Knowledge - Volume 1: SKY, (IC3K 2016) ISBN 978-989-758-202-8, pages 19-26. DOI: 10.5220/0006080700190026


in Bibtex Style

@conference{sky16,
author={Iaakov Exman and Phillip Katz},
title={Modulaser: A Tool for Conceptual Analysis of Software Systems},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 7th International Workshop on Software Knowledge - Volume 1: SKY, (IC3K 2016)},
year={2016},
pages={19-26},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0006080700190026},
isbn={978-989-758-202-8},
}


in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the 7th International Workshop on Software Knowledge - Volume 1: SKY, (IC3K 2016)
TI - Modulaser: A Tool for Conceptual Analysis of Software Systems
SN - 978-989-758-202-8
AU - Exman I.
AU - Katz P.
PY - 2016
SP - 19
EP - 26
DO - 10.5220/0006080700190026