PAAAAAR@CALSTATE.BITNET (11/11/89)
Torkil Hammer(2 Nov 89) quoted a posting I have not received: >> I am working on my MS in Software Development & Management at >>Rochester Institute of Technology. I am doing research on Software >>Maintenance, and am looking for some info.... > >>Specifically, I'd like to know what tools have been used and with >>what level of success to reverse-engineer old, unstructured, nightmare- >>to-maintain code. The Oxford Z group are using or have used the Z language to reverse engineer IBM CICS operating system. How does that fit? See "Properties of Z Specifications", JCP Woodcock pages 43-54 of "Sofware Engineering Notes", An Informal Newsletter of the SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP ON SOFTWARE ENGINEERING of the Association for Computing Machinary.(SIGSOFT) Vol 14, Number 5, Jul 1989. Torkil Hammer continued: > What I have done is to get information about what the code is supposed > to do. This type of code is usually poorly documented, but asking > around gives surprisingly good answers. Next, to get it up and running > and try various inputs to confirm theories. At this point I open the > lid on the garbage can and begin to peek into subroutines to confirm > more theories and also to figure out whether I have the full story. This is typical... I recall one project, however, where a large DP system was being re-engineered. The new team was constructing a set of "All-Path" tests for the new version. Regularly analysts and designers could not tell the new team what the system was supposed to do on a given set of data and had to run the old one to find out ... > Sorry, no hitech sounding 'tools', just plain work. Won't do for a > master's thesis. Try these titles: 1. A Formal Model of the Software Re-engineering Process. 2. Software Re-Engineering: A Problem of Technology Transfer 3. Software Re-Engineering as an Exemplar of the Scientific Method ------------------------------------------------------------- Richard J. Botting, Department of computer science, California State University, San Bernardino, 5500 State University Parkway, San Bernardino CA 92407 PAAAAAR@CCS.CSUSCC.CALSTATE paaaaar@calstate.bitnet PAAAAAR%CALSTATE.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU ---------------------------------------------------------- Disclaimer: These ideas are plausibly deniable by most organisations. ----------------------------------------------------------------