Improving Software Maintenance through Advanced Trace Analysis and Abstraction Techniques

通过高级跟踪分析和抽象技术改进软件维护

• 批准号: 342458-2012
• 负责人: HamouLhadj, Abdelwahab
• 金额: $ 1.02万
• 依托单位: Concordia University
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2015-01-01 至 2016-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=572495
• 关键词: Improving; Software; Maintenance; through; Advanced

Our society depends greatly on software systems in many of its critical activities including finance, health, education, telecommunications, aerospace, and many more. These software systems need to be regularly maintained and upgraded to meet the ever increasing user needs and the constant changes in technology. However, maintaining such systems is a challenging and costly activity. In fact, experts agree that this is one of the most difficult tasks in software engineering. The problem is that software engineers must understand different aspects of a software system before they can make changes that preserve reliability and other system attributes. In an ideal environment, design decisions would be based on information kept in up-to-date documentation. However, for a variety of reasons, maintaining sufficiently good documentation has been found to be impractical in many organizations. In this research program, my students and I will investigate new and advanced approaches that can help software engineers understand the complex behaviour of software systems. We will particularly focus on tracing and monitoring techniques. The ultimate objective is to improve the productivity of software engineers as they solve maintenance problems. The outcomes of this research program should have a real impact on the Canadian software industry. Canadian companies and government agencies can focus on delivering new products and enhanced services that add value to the customers instead of spending energy and money on understanding and fixing existing systems. The program will also contribute to the training of highly qualified personnel in an area that has gained an increased attention both nationally and internationally.

我们的社会在许多关键活动中都严重依赖软件系统，包括金融、卫生、教育、电信、航空航天等。这些软件系统需要定期维护和升级，以满足不断增长的用户需求和不断变化的技术。然而，维护这样的系统是一项具有挑战性且成本高昂的活动。事实上，专家们一致认为，这是软件工程中最困难的任务之一。问题是，软件工程师必须了解软件系统的不同方面，才能做出保持可靠性和其他系统属性的更改。在理想的环境中，设计决策将基于保存在最新文档中的信息。然而，由于各种原因，在许多组织中，维护足够好的文档被发现是不切实际的。 在这个研究项目中，我和我的学生将研究新的和先进的方法，这些方法可以帮助软件工程师理解软件系统的复杂行为。我们将特别关注追踪和监测技术。最终目标是提高软件工程师在解决维护问题时的生产率。 这个研究项目的结果应该会对加拿大的软件业产生真正的影响。加拿大公司和政府机构可以专注于提供新产品和增强的服务，为客户增加价值，而不是花费精力和金钱来了解和修复现有系统。该方案还将有助于在一个在国内和国际上获得越来越多关注的领域培训高素质的人员。