The Best of Both Worlds: Reusable Software via Unplanned Reuse

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Since the 1960s, the idea of reusing pre-existing software artifacts for the development of new software artifacts has been promoted for its potential to reduce costs and improve quality. Classical software reuse demands that we predict well the future needs of software systems in order for their functionality to be modularized in an easily reused form; this is anticipated reuse. Since our ability to predict the future is not perfect, there occur cases where a developer cannot find a modularized, reusable artifact that meets their needs. A common industrial response is to copy-and-modify fragments of existing artifacts; this is unanticipated reuse. Both anticipated and unanticipated reuse approaches have benefits and weaknesses. Anticipated reuse allows us to create well-designed and well-documented software artifacts, but at high cost and without guarantee that the investment will be recouped. Unanticipated reuse permits high customizability, but can lead to poor decisions and without guarantee that important properties from the old system are preserved.