REENGINEERING DEPRECATED COMPONENT FRAMEWORKS: A CASE STUDY OF THE MICROSOFT FOUNDATION CLASSES

In today’s application engineering, the implementation of frameworks and related technology boosts development quality and reduces related effort. Framework functionality embodies expert knowledge and is driven towards reuse. While stable from a conceptual point of view, technological changes require constant adaptation and reengineering. This article presents overall framework engineering principles and practices (FEPP) and shows their concrete application using the example of the Microsoft Foundation Classes. Abstracting from the case study, the focus of this work is upon introducing particular methods for how to cut down on the complexity of maintenance projects by considering the FEPP during framework development

Specifying Reuse Interfaces for Task-Oriented Framework Specialization

Reuse of existing carefully designed and tested software improves the quality of new software systems and reduces their development costs. Object-oriented frameworks provide an established means for software reuse on the levels of both architectural design and concrete implementation. Unfortunately, due to frame-works complexity that typically results from their flexibility and overall abstract nature, there are severe problems in using frameworks. Patterns are generally accepted as a convenient way of documenting frameworks and their reuse interfaces. In this thesis it is argued, however, that mere static documentation is not enough to solve the problems related to framework usage. Instead, proper interactive assistance tools are needed in order to enable system-atic framework-based software production. This thesis shows how patterns that document a framework s reuse interface can be represented as dependency graphs, and how dynamic lists of programming tasks can be generated from those graphs to assist the process of using a framework to build an application. This approach to framework specialization combines the ideas of framework cookbooks and task-oriented user interfaces. Tasks provide assistance in (1) cre-ating new code that complies with the framework reuse interface specification, (2) assuring the consistency between existing code and the specification, and (3) adjusting existing code to meet the terms of the specification. Besides illustrating how task-orientation can be applied in the context of using frameworks, this thesis describes a systematic methodology for modeling any framework reuse interface in terms of software patterns based on dependency graphs. The methodology shows how framework-specific reuse interface specifi-cations can be derived from a library of existing reusable pattern hierarchies. Since the methodology focuses on reusing patterns, it also alleviates the recog-nized problem of framework reuse interface specification becoming complicated and unmanageable for frameworks of realistic size. The ideas and methods proposed in this thesis have been tested through imple-menting a framework specialization tool called JavaFrames. JavaFrames uses role-based patterns that specify a reuse interface of a framework to guide frame-work specialization in a task-oriented manner. This thesis reports the results of cases studies in which JavaFrames and the hierarchical framework reuse inter-face modeling methodology were applied to the Struts web application frame-work and the JHotDraw drawing editor framework

Towards a framework for a sustainable ecosystem for informal entrepreneurship in South Africa

Low economic growth and high levels of unemployment and poverty have led many South Africans to engage in survivalist activities in the informal economy, including informal entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is viewed as a panacea for growth and development and developing countries like South Africa can benefit from growing informal entrepreneurship within a conducive ecosystem. Entrepreneurship ecosystems and informal entrepreneurship have been researched extensively, but separately. However, literature on informal entrepreneurship ecosystems (IEEs) is sparse and fragmented and is presently undocumented. Therefore, this research study aimed to join the pieces of the puzzle together in order to craft a framework that facilitates the creation of a sustainable IEE in South Africa. Using the interactive qualitative analysis (IQA) research methodology, this qualitative research derived knowledge on the South African informal entrepreneurship ecosystem from the perspective of two constituencies, using IQA focus groups representing each constituency. • Focus group 1 (informal entrepreneur constituency) comprised 15 informal traders from the eThekwini Municipality; and • Focus group 2 (subject matter expert constituency) comprised 7 individuals from academia, business and support organisations. Knowledge derived from the perspectives of these constituencies, who identified elements of the IEE system and relationships between these elements, is reflected in each constituency’s system. Structural, theoretical and inferential interpretations and analyses of these systems uncovered new knowledge and insights to create an IEE framework. This research introduced and defined the concept of an IEE and introduced the IEE framework containing eight dimensions, thus making a unique contribution to the extant body of literature on informal entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship ecosystems. This research contributes to cultivating informal entrepreneurship in South Africa by understanding the IEE, uncovering the deficiencies in the current IEE and making recommendations on how to strengthen the IEE. Using the IQA research methodology, this research enriches the understanding of IEEs and strengthens the IEE in South Africa by revealing the social realities of ecosystem agents through two underlying sub-systems supporting the IEE, namely the Macro-IEE containing distal factors and the Micro-IEE containing proximal factors. This research views government as a primary IEE change agent whose role is to enable informal entrepreneurship by co-creating and driving proximal and distal IEE policies; improving informal business regulations and the enforcement thereof; encouraging private sector and institutional involvement in the IEE; and providing IEE support and infrastructure.Graduate School of Business LeadershipD.B.L

Designing a Framework by Stepwise Generalization

Frameworks are class collections that capture the common aspects of applications in a certain problem domain. It is argued that conventional object-oriented design methods do not suit well to frameworks. As an alternative, we suggest a two-phase design method. The first phase is a stepwise generalization of a problem to its most general form. The second phase proceeds in the opposite direction, giving an implementation for every generalization level. The implementation of a certain level can be regarded as a framework for implementing the next more specific level. The main advantage of our method is that it enhances the generality (and therefore reusability) of the framework architecture, and explains the design decisions in the simplest possible context. As a case study, we describe a framework supporting the analysis of formal languages. 1 Introduction A framework is a collection of collaborating classes that captures the applicationindependent behaviour of systems in a particular ..