A dependency-sharing tool for global software engineering

Abstract

This project explores the design of a tool to facilitate a common task that software engineers find difficult - the identification and management of dependencies between the many heterogeneous entities created in the course of a software development project. The focus of this tool is the value it might have during the maintenance phase. Maintenance engineers learn and understand the project differently from the original authors of the artifacts. Typically, they come to understand the project by investigating dependencies between entities- a task that can be very difficult and time-consuming. To deal with these differences, the Global Software Traceability (GST) Tool was designed and prototyped to explore improvements in the usability of maintaining dependency links after the project has been deployed. The GST Tool is a proof-of-concept design prototype used to investigate how to make such a tool both useful and usable. The tool was successful in creating an environment whose overhead was low enough to make it likely that it would be used despite the severe time constraints found in software maintenance. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.