The canonical activities of reverse engineering
Annals of Software EngineeringPublished 1 May 2000
Scott Tilley
Citations20
Generate an AI Snapshot to get a quick, structured summary of this paper.
Study Snapshot
ObjectiveStudy objective
MethodsResearch methodology
PopulationPopulation studied
Sample sizeSample sizes
OutcomesStudy outcomes here
ResultsStudy results comes here
LimitationsResearch study limitations comes here
A concise AI-generated summary of the paper will appear here once you click Generate AI Snapshot.
TL;DR
This paper describes three categories of canonical activities that are characteristic of reverse engineering for program understanding and describes a descriptive model that categorizes important support mechanism features based on a hierarchy of attributes.
Abstract
This paper describes three categories of canonical activities that are characteristic of reverse engineering for program understanding. The activities are data gathering, knowledge management, and information exploration. All tasks carried out by a software engineer during a program understanding exercise can be mapped to a composition of one or more of these canonical activities. The design space formed by the canonical activities can be used to classify the capabilities provided by individual support mechanisms using a common vocabulary. A descriptive model that categorizes important support mechanism features based on a hierarchy of attributes is used to structure the canonical activities.
Keywords
Computer Science
The Entity Relationship Model — Toward a Unified View of Data
5,769 Citations2002Peter Pin-Shan Chen
A data model, called the entity-relationship model, is proposed that incorporates some of the important semantic information about the real world and can be used as a basis for unification of different views of data: the network model, the relational model, and the entity set model.
ACM Transactions on Database SystemsThe entity-relationship model—toward a unified view of data
4,648 Citations1976Peter Pin-Shan Chen
IEEE Transactions on Software EngineeringProgram Slicing
3,175 Citations1984Mark Weiser
In particular, finding statement-minimal slices is in general unsolvable, but using data flow analysis is sufficient to find approximate slices.
ComputerNo Silver Bullet Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering
3,144 Citations1987Brooks
This article shall try to show why there is no single development, in either technology or management technique, that by itself promises even one order-of-magnitude improvement in productivity, in reliability, in simplicity.
IEEE SoftwareReverse engineering and design recovery: a taxonomy
1,984 Citations1990Elliot J. Chikofsky, James H. Cross
The authors define and relate six terms: forward engineering, reverse engineering, redocumentation, design recovery, restructuring, and reengineering to apply to the underlying engineering processes, regardless of the degree of automation applied.
The American Journal of PsychologyImage and Mind
1,835 Citations1982Peter Podgorny, Stephen M. Kosslyn
Database System Concepts
1,791 Citations1980Henry F. Korth, Abraham Silberschatz
This acclaimed revision of a classic database systems text provides the latest information combined with real-world examples to help readers master concepts in a technically complete yet easy-to-understand style.
ACM Transactions on Database SystemsExtending the database relational model to capture more meaning
1,555 Citations1979E. F. Codd
This paper proposes extensions to the relational model to support certain atomic and molecular semantics, a synthesis of many ideas from the published work in semantic modeling plus the introduction of new rules for insertion, update, and deletion, as well as new algebraic operators.
The SAGE International Encyclopedia of Mass Media and SocietyHypertext and Hypermedia
678 Citations2020
The ideas that are most important for understanding hypertext and hypermedia are found and are also essential for designing websites or other kinds of hypertext/hypermedia projects.
Extending the data base relational model to capture more meaning
562 Citations1979E. F. Codd
This paper proposes extensions to the relational model to support certain atomic and molecular semantics, and represents a synthesis of many ideas from the published work in semantic modeling.
ComputerFinding facts vs. browsing knowledge in hypertext systems
447 Citations1988Gary Marchionini, Ben Shneiderman
A user-centered framework for information-seeking is presented that has been used in evaluating two hypertext systems and is applied to key design issues related to information retrieval inhypertext systems.
Communications of the ACMThe art of navigating through hypertext
445 Citations1990Jakob Nielsen
To investigate a number of user interface options in hypertext systems, a prototype system was designed in the form of a hypertext report on events at the 1987 hypertext workshop, implemented on an Apple Macintosh with Hypercard as the programming system.
Principles of Database Systems
428 Citations1994Jeffrey D. Ullman
Topics in information systemsOn Conceptual Modelling
356 Citations1984Michael L. Brodie, John Mylopoulos +1 more
Lecture notes in computer scienceTool integration in software engineering environments
229 Citations1990Anthony I. Wasserman
This paper has described the various types of tool integration with the goal of illustrating how diverse tools can be effectively integrated into CASE environments.
International Conference on Software EngineeringRigi-A system for programming-in-the-large
208 Citations1988Hausi Müller, K. Klashinsky
Elsevier eBooksENCODING KNOWLEDGE IN PARTITIONED NETWORKS
167 Citations1979Gary G. Hendrix
This chapter discusses network notations for encoding a number of different kinds of knowledge, including taxonomic information; general statements involving quantification; information about processes and procedures; the delineation of local contexts, beliefs, and wishes; and the relationships between syntactic units and their interpretations.
Science of Computer ProgrammingHow do program understanding tools affect how programmers understand programs?
155 Citations2000M.-A. Storey, Kevin Wong +1 more
Identifying aggregates in hypertext structures
155 Citations1991Rodrigo A. Botafogo, Ben Shneiderman
This paper studies the hypertext structure, i.e., the way nodes are linked to each other in order to find aggregates in hypertext databases, using two graph theoretical algorithms: biconnected components and strongly connected components.
Requirements for integrating software architecture and reengineering models: CORUM II
145 Citations2002Rick Kazman, Steven Woods +1 more
The CORUM model of reengineering tool interoperation is built upon to include software architecture concepts and tools and is organized around the metaphor of a "horseshoe", where the left-hand side of the horseshoe consists of fact extraction from an existing system, the right hand side consists of development activities, and the bridge between the sides consists of a set of transformations from the old to the new.
Informatik-FachberichteAn Overview of Knowledge Representation
135 Citations1983John Mylopoulos, Hector J. Levesque
Using structured types to incorporate knowledge in hypertext
118 Citations1991Jocelyne Nanard, Marc Nanard
An object-oriented hypertext model (implemented in the MacWeb system) using structured types to incorporate knowledge in hypertext makes the capture of knowledge at source easier thus allowing a more conceptual navigation.
Larger scale systems require higher-level abstractions
103 Citations1989Mary Shaw
Over the past thirty years, abstraction techniques such as high level programming languages and abstract data types have improved the ability to specify and develop software, but the increasing size and complexity of software systems have introduced new problems that are not solved by the current techniques.
Current parsing techniques in software renovation considered harmful
102 Citations2002Mark van den Brand, A. Sellink +1 more
It is concluded that current technology may cause problems for the reengineering industry and that modular and/or compositional parsing techniques are a possible solution.
A comparison of four reverse engineering tools
78 Citations2002Berndt Bellay, Harald C. Gall
This work evaluated four reverse engineering tools that analyze C source code: Refine/C, Imagix4D, Sniff+, and Rigi, and identified benefits and shortcomings of these tools and assessed their applicability for embedded software systems, their usability, and their extensibility.
The evolution of Websites
75 Citations2003Paul Warren, Cornelia Boldyreff +1 more
This research aims to characterise the evolution of Web sites in terms of new metrics and models based on the work on software evolution, and the analysis of hypertext and software by use of metrics and other means.
ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering NotesDomain-specific software architecture (DSSA) frequently asked questions (FAQ)
75 Citations1994Will Tracz
This paper provides a list of "Frequently Asked Questions" (FAQ) about the Domain-Specific Software Architecture Project (DSSA).
A reverse engineering environment based on spatial and visual software interconnection models
74 Citations1992Hausi Müller, S. Tilley +3 more
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.
How do program understanding tools affect how programmers understand programs?
71 Citations2002M.-A. Storey, Kevin Wong +1 more
This study explores the question of whether program understanding tools enhance or change the way that programmers understand programs, and describes how these tools supported or hindered the diverse comprehension strategies used.
The nested context model for hyperdocuments
71 Citations1991Marco A. Casanova, Luiz Tucherman +4 more
The nested context model is described, a conceptual framework for the definition, presentation and browsing of documents that defines an abstract and flexible application program interface that captures the idea that different applications may observe the same node in different ways.
A Reverse-Engineering Environment Framework
59 Citations1998Scott Tilley
A descriptive model is described that categorizes important support mechanism features based on a hierarchy of attributes that include cognitive model support, reverse-engineering tasks, canonical activities that are characteristic of thereverse-engineering process, quality attributes supported by the reverse- engineering environment, and miscellaneous characteristics.
International Conference on Software EngineeringAn empirical study of static call graph extractors
58 Citations1996Gail C. Murphy, David Notkin +1 more
Evaluating architectural extractors
57 Citations2002Martin Armstrong, C. Trudeau
Of the tools evaluated, the Software Bookshelf and the Dali workbench were found to be the most suitable for architectural recovery.
IEEE Transactions on Software EngineeringSoftware environment architectures and user interface facilities
41 Citations1988Michael W. Young, Richard N. Taylor +1 more
A model for designing user interface management systems for large extensible environments is presented, which synthesizes several recent advances in user interfaces and specializes them to the domain of software environments.
ACM SIGPLAN NoticesConceptual modeling and programming languages
32 Citations1994Bent Bruun Kristensen, Kasper Østerbye
This paper will present a model of the interactions between epistemology, concept formation, programming language analysis and design, and programming that will be used to develop a taxonomic framework for analyzing and designing abstraction mechanisms found in object-oriented languages.
Data Models: A Semantic Approach for Database Systems
30 Citations1980Sheldon A. Borkin
This book deals with two issues which are of considerable interest within database management today: the development of semantic data models, and equivalence properties of data models.
An architecture for interoperable program understanding tools
29 Citations2002S. Woods, Liam O’Brien +3 more
This paper discusses CORUM (Common Object-based Re-engineering Unified Model), an architecture to support interoperability between program understanding tools, and it provides several examples of CORUM's use in the construction of new tools for concept recognition and program visualization.
Implementing hypertext database relationships through aggregations and exception
26 Citations1991Yoshinori Hara, Arthur M. Keller +1 more
This paper focuses on a clustering method, ACE, which generates aggregations and exceptions from the original graph structure in order to capture high level relationships, and uses a heuristic approach based on an extended Kernighan-Lin algorithm.
ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering NotesLarger scale systems require higher-level abstractions
24 Citations1989M. Shaw
Journal of Software Maintenance Research and PracticeDECODE: A Co-operative Program Understanding Environment
20 Citations1996David N. Chin, Alex Quilici
Computers & Mathematics with ApplicationsConstraint-based design recovery for software reengineering: Theory and experiments
19 Citations1998
The Constraint-Based Approach to Program Understanding and AI Plan Recognition shows clear trends in program understanding and satisfaction, and these trends are likely to increase in the coming years.
Constraint-Based Design Recovery for Software Reengineering
16 Citations1998Steven Woods, Alexander E. Quilici +1 more
Constraint Satisfaction, 22, 43, 68, 118, 174 the revise subroutine, 152 FCDR, 51, 72, 74 FCDR/NoVA, 85 FCDRIYA-modified,102 GM-CSP, 110, 159-160 and hierarchy, 52, 62, 103 arc consistency, 4849 backtracking search.
Journal of Software Maintenance Research and PracticeDECODE: A Co‐operative Program Understanding Environment
15 Citations1996David N. Chin, Alex Quilici
Lecture notes in computer scienceWhy hypermedia systems are important
15 Citations1992H. Maurer
It is argued that the original vision of hypertext-pioneers in North America and Europe that a non-linear widely distributed corpus of information accessible “everywhere by everyone” is still very much alive and becoming more and more a reality, even if some of the glamour has been stolen by stand-alone developments as started by Hypercard.
ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering NotesA reverse engineering environment based on spatial and visual software interconnection models
12 Citations1992Hausi Müller, S. Tilley +3 more
The Year 2000 Problem: Issues and Implications.
12 Citations1997Dennis B. Smith, Hausi A. Mueller +1 more
The basic issues of the so-called 'Year 2000' (Y2K) problem are outlined and some of its implications are discussed.
Domain-retargetable reverse engineering. III. Layered modeling
11 Citations2002S. Tilley
The paper presents a layered modeling approach to representing three classes of artifacts manipulated during the reverse engineering process that provides a practical and extensible method of integrating existing tools and techniques into a reverse engineering environment by leveraging results from other areas, such as relational databases, hypertext, and conceptual modeling.
eScholarship (California Digital Library)PolyView : an object-oriented data model for supporting multiple user views
10 Citations1990Jonathan P. Gilbert
This dissertation presents PolyView; an object-oriented data model capable of simultaneously supporting many points of view, and provides a set of view transformations which allow view administrators to build object interfaces.
Elsevier eBooksA HEURISTIC INFORMATION RETRIEVAL SYSTEM BASED ON ASSOCIATIVE NETWORKS
10 Citations1979Nicholas V. Findler
An information retrieval system under development, which makes use of, rather than simulates, the strength and flexibility of humans in dealing with incomplete, uncertain, and inconsistent data is described.
ACM SIGPLAN NoticesGraph attribution with multiple attribute grammers
8 Citations1987Johannes Rohrich
A multiple attribute grammar consists of several attribute grammars that describe an attributed graph as a union of attributed trees, and from an MTAG one can automatically generate attribute evaluators for graphs.
Discovering DISCOVER
6 Citations1997Scott Tilley
Investigations into DISCOVER, a modern software development and maintenance environment, are described, guided by a framework for classifying program understanding tools that is based on a description of the canonical activities that are characteristic of the reverse engineering process.
Deep Blue (University of Michigan)Design and implementation of query languages for program databases
4 Citations1996Santanu Paul
Experimental results demonstrate that the algebraic approach to source code query and analysis combines the benefits of expressive power, compactness, and formalism within a single query language.
Maintaining a uniform user interface for an Ada programming environment
4 Citations1988Raymond Klefstad
This dissertation presents a scheme for adding tools to a programming environment so as to achieve and maintain an advanced and uniform user interface throughout the environment and demonstrates by implementation of the programming environment, Arcturus, and the Ada Shell.