A dependency-sharing tool for global software engineering

  • Authors:

  • Douglas Lee;Allen E. Milewski;Daniela Rosca

  • Affiliations:

  • Dept. of Computer Science and Software Engineering, Monmouth University West Long Branch, New Jersey;Dept. of Computer Science and Software Engineering, Monmouth University West Long Branch, New Jersey;Dept. of Computer Science and Software Engineering, Monmouth University West Long Branch, New Jersey

  • Venue:
  • DUXU'13 Proceedings of the Second international conference on Design, User Experience, and Usability: web, mobile, and product design - Volume Part IV
  • Year:
  • 2013

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Abstract

This project explores the design of a tool to facilitate a common task that software engineers find difficult --- the identification and management of dependencies between the many heterogeneous entities created in the course of a software development project. The focus of this tool is the value it might have during the maintenance phase. Maintenance engineers learn and understand the project differently from the original authors of the artifacts. Typically, they come to understand the project by investigating dependencies between entities- a task that can be very difficult and time-consuming. To deal with these differences, the Global Software Traceability (GST) Tool was designed and prototyped to explore improvements in the usability of maintaining dependency links after the project has been deployed. The GST Tool is a proof-of-concept design prototype used to investigate how to make such a tool both useful and usable. The tool was successful in creating an environment whose overhead was low enough to make it likely that it would be used despite the severe time constraints found in software maintenance.