home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
ftp.umcs.maine.edu
/
2015-02-07.ftp.umcs.maine.edu.tar
/
ftp.umcs.maine.edu
/
pub
/
WISR
/
wisr6
/
proceedings
/
ascii
/
arya.ascii
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1993-10-19
|
5KB
|
123 lines
Software Reuse on RCAS
Pamela K. Arya
General Research Corp.
1900 Gallows Road, Vienna, Va. 22101
Tel: (703) 827-4282, Fax: (703) 827-4299
Email: parya@grci.com
Abstract
In this position paper, I will describe the current state of the Reserve Component Automation
System's reuse program. As the team leader ofthe reuse program, I have found that creating
reusable components for a specific, active development effort is very different than creating
components for a generic reuse library or even a domain specific library. I will also describe
future plans for measuring the amount of reuse in our code and which components are the most
popular.
Keywords: RCAS reuse program, developing reusable components, measuring reuse
Workshop Goals: To share experiences with other pracitioners who are running similar reuse
library programs. To discuss models for measuring reuse and thefinancial savings produced.
To compare the effectiveness and functionality of various reuse tools.
Working Groups: reuse process models, reuse education, position paper guidelines.
Arya- 1
1 Background
My work in reuse began on a contract that supported the ArmyRAPID Center (now ARC - Army
Reuse Center). In this position, I certified over 500 reusable components, analyzed components
for reusability, evaluated the certification process and taught a tutorial in the use of RAPID's
library tool. After changing employment to General Research Corp., I became the head of the
reuse team for GRC's software development work on RCAS. My responsibilities include identifying
and developing reusable components, encouraging donation of components, and promoting their
use as well as developing a formal reuse plan, setting goals, and measuring reuse. In addition to
my activities on RCAS, I am GRC's represent-itive to the STAR's TT affiliates program and an
active member of the RIG's technical commitee 2 which I represented on a panel at ANCOST'93.
2 Position
The RCAS Reuse team supports over 100 software engineers who have donated 754 reusable Ada
packages and 358 data objects (reusable SQL code). We also have reusable error messages and
EVB's Grace components. The engineers have just finished the Block 1 phase of development
where there was exstensive use of the reusable comp onents to minimize the impact of an agressive
schedule. This large volume of code now provides the opportunity to analyze the reuse habits of
over 100 developers. By using GRC's commercial analytic tool ADAQuest to examine the Diana
trees, we will be able to count all uses of package calls, types, generic instantiations, derived typ es,
and renames.
I think this will help to answer an important question that doesn't seem to be discussed enough:
What are the attributes of a successful reusable component ? Are COTS components preferred
to those developed by one's colleague ? Is size a factorin the p opularity of a component ? Do
software engineers really crave a doubly-linked list or do they prefer functionality more specific to
their development efforts ? We will be looking at these sorts of factors in the next few months after
the ADAQuest tool is modified to produce the desired numerical data. Maybe other practitioners
at the workshop can suggest interesting metrics and factors to analyze.
3 Comparison
Unfortunately I really do not know of anyone who is working on populating a reuse library for an
active development effort in a multi-level secure environment. Also, due to contractual reasons,
we may not reuse government furnished components. I think that the closest work to ours would
be domain specific reuse efforts where components from one project are installed in the library
targeted for use on designated future projects. In our case components are installed at the request
of the software engineer for immediate use. Since the reuse team and the develop ersare working on
the same site, there is much more human interaction and a quicker response time to maintenance
and enhancement requests. It would be interesting to compare the number of such requests more
generic libraries receive to the number of requests we receive.
Arya- 2
4 Background
Pamela K. Arya heads the reuse team on the Reserve Component Automation System development
effort for General Research Corporation, Vienna, Va. Her responsibilities include developing a reuse
plan, developing and indentifying reusable components and measuring the results of reuse. She was
previously a Senior Software Engineer for SofTech in support of the Army Reuse Center. Before
that she worked for Computer Science Corporation developing attitude ground support systems
for GSFC NASA. She received a M.S. in Computer Science from The Johns Hopkins University in
1992 and a B.S. in Geology-Physics from Brown University in 1984.
Arya- 3