Abstract
The paper describes an empirical study to investigate the state of practice and challenges concerning some key factors in reusing of in-house built components. It also studies the relationship between the companies’ reuse level and these factors. We have collected research questions and hypotheses from a literature review and designed a questionnaire. 26 developers from three Norwegian companies filled in the questionnaire based on their experience and attitudes to component reuse and component-based development. Most component-based software engineering articles deal with COTS components, while components in our study are in-house built. The results show that challenges are the same in component related requirements (re)negotiation, component documentation and quality attributes specification. The results also show that informal communications between developers are very helpful to supplement the limitation of component documentation, and therefore should be given more attention. The results confirm that component repositories are not a key factor to successful component reuse.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Berglund, E.: Writing for Adaptable Documentation. In: Proceedings of IEEE Professional Communication Society International Professional Communication Conference and Proceedings of the 18th ACM International Conference on Computer Documentation: Technology & Teamwork, Cambridge, Massachusetts, September 2000, pp. 497–508 (2000)
Brereton, P.: Component-Based System: A Classification of Issues. IEEE Computer 33(11), 54–62 (2000)
Brown, A.W.: The Current State of CBSE. IEEE Software, 37–46 (September/October 1998)
Brown, A.W.: Large-Scale Component-Based Development. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs (2000)
Brown, A.W., Booch, G.: Reusing Open-source Software and Practices: The Impact of Open-source on Commercial Vendors. In: Gacek, C. (ed.) ICSR 2002. LNCS, vol. 2319, pp. 123–136. Springer, Heidelberg (2002)
Conradi, R., Dybå, T.: An Empirical Study on the Utility of Formal Routines to Transfer Knowledge and Experience. In: Proceedings of European Software Engineering Conference, Vienna, September 2001, pp. 268–276 (2001)
Councill, B., Heineman, G.T.: Component-Base Software Engineering and the Issue of Trust. In: Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Software Engineering, Limerick, Ireland, June 2000, pp. 661–664 (2000)
Crnkovic, I., Larsson, M.: A Case Study: Demands on Component-based Development. In: Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Software Engineering, Limerick, Ireland, June 2000, pp. 21–31 (2000)
Crnkovic, I.: Component-based Software Engineering - New Challenges in Software Development. In: Proceedings of 25th International Conference on Information Technology Interfaces, Cavtat, Croatia, June 2003, pp. 9–18 (2003)
Dingsøyr, T., Røyrvik, E.: An Empirical Study of an Informal Knowledge Repository in a Medium-Sized Software Consulting Company. In: Proceedings of 25th International Conference on Software Engineering, Portland, Oregon, USA, May 2003, pp. 84–92 (2003)
Frakes, W.B.: An Empirical Framework for Software Reuse Research. In: Proceedings of the Third Annual Reuse Workshop, Syracuse University, Syracuse (1990)
Frakes, W.B., Fox, C.J.: Sixteen Questions about Software Reuse. Communication of the ACM 38(6), 75–87 (1995)
Jacobson, I., Griss, M., Jonsson, P.: Software Reuse-Architecture, Process and Organization for Business Success. Addison-Wesley Professional, Reading (1997)
Judd, C.M., Smith, E.R., Kidder, L.H.: Research Methods in Social Relations, 6th edn. Holt Rinehart and Winston (1991)
Kim, Y., Stohr, E.A.: Software Reuse: Survey and Research Directions. Journal of Management Information System 14(4), 113–147 (1998)
Kruger, C.: Software Reuse. ACM Computing Surveys 24(2), 131–183 (1992)
Lee, N.Y., Litecky, C.R.: An Empirical Study on Software Reuse with Special Attention to Ada. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 23(9), 537–549 (1997)
Rothenberger, M.A., Dooley, K.J., Kulkarni, U.R.: Strategies for Software Reuse: A Principal Component Analysis of Reuse Practices. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 29(9), 825–837 (2003)
Mili, H., Mili, F., Mili, A.: Reusing Software: Issues and Research Directions. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 21(6), 528–561 (1995)
Morisio, M., Seaman, C.B., Parra, A.T., Basili, V.R., Kraft, S.E., Condon, S.E.: Investigating and Improving a COTS-Based Software Development Process. In: Proceeding of 22nd International Conference on Software Engineering, Limerick, Ireland, June 2000, pp. 31–40 (2000)
Morisio, M., Ezran, M., Tully, C.: Success and Failure Factors in Software Reuse. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 28(4), 340–357 (2002)
Mohagheghi, P., Conradi, R.: Experiences with Certification of Reusable Components in the GSN Project in Ericsson, Norway. In: Proceedings of the 4th ICSE Workshop on Component-Based Software Engineering: Component Certification and System Prediction, Toronto, May 2001, pp. 27–31 (2001)
Poulin, J.S.: Measuring Software Reuse-Principles, Practices, and Economic Models. Addison-Wesley, Reading (1997)
Sai, V.: COTS Acquisition Evaluation Process: The Preacher’s Practice. In: Erdogmus, H., Weng, T. (eds.) ICCBSS 2003. LNCS, vol. 2580, pp. 196–206. Springer, Heidelberg (2003)
Sindre, G., Conradi, R., Karlsson, E.-A.: The REBOOT Approach to Software Reuse. Journal of System Software 30(3), 201–212 (1995)
Tran, V.N., Liu, D.-B.: Application of CBSE to Projects with Evolving Requirements- A Lesson-learned. In: Proceeding of the 6th Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference (APSEC 1999) Takamatsu, Japan, December 1999, pp. 28–37 (1999)
Vitharana, P.: Risks and Challenges of Component-based Software Development. Communications of the ACM 46(8), 67–72 (2003)
Whitehead, K.: Component-Based Development: Principles and Planning for Business Systems. Addison-Wesley, Reading (2002)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2004 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Li, J. et al. (2004). A Study of Developer Attitude to Component Reuse in Three IT Companies. In: Bomarius, F., Iida, H. (eds) Product Focused Software Process Improvement. PROFES 2004. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3009. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-24659-6_39
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-24659-6_39
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-21421-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-24659-6
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive