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Reuse-Conducive Development Environments

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Abstract

Despite its well-recognized benefits, software reuse has not met its expected success due to technical, cognitive, and social difficulties. We have systematically analyzed the reuse problem (especially the cognitive and social difficulties faced by software developers who reuse) from a multidimensional perspective, drawing on our long-term research on information retrieval, human-computer interaction, and knowledge-based systems. Based on this analysis, we propose the concept of reuse-conducive development environments, which encourage and enable software developers to reuse through the smooth integration of reuse repository systems and development environments. We have designed, implemented, and evaluated CodeBroker—a reuse-conducive development environment—that autonomously locates and delivers task-relevant and personalized components into the current software development environment. Empirical evaluations of CodeBroker have shown that the system is effective in promoting reuse by enabling software developers to reuse components unknown to them, reducing the difficulties in locating components, and augmenting the programming capability of software developers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. SRA Key Technology Laboratory, Inc., 3-12 Yotsuya, Shinjuku, Tokyo, 160-004, Japan

    Yunwen Ye

  2. Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, 80303-0430, USA

    Yunwen Ye & Gerhard Fischer

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  1. Yunwen Ye
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  2. Gerhard Fischer
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Correspondence to Yunwen Ye.

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Ye, Y., Fischer, G. Reuse-Conducive Development Environments. Autom Software Eng 12, 199–235 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10515-005-6206-x

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