A Search Engine for Finding and Reusing Architecturally Significant Code

Architectural tactics are the building blocks of software architecture. They describe solutions for addressing specific quality concerns, and are prevalent across many software systems. Once a decision is made to utilize a tactic, the developer must generate a concrete plan for implementing the tactic in the code. Unfortunately, this is a non-trivial task even for experienced developers. Developers often resort to using search engines, crowd-sourcing websites, or discussion forums to find sample code snippets to implement a tactic. A fundamental problem of finding implementation for architectural patterns/tactics is the mismatch between the high-level intent reflected in the descriptions of these patterns ,and low-level implementation details of them. To reduce this mismatch, we created a novel Tactic Search Engine called ArchEngine (ARCHitecture search ENGINE). ArchEngine can replace this manual Internet-based search process and help developers to reuse proper architectural knowledge and accurately implement tactics and patterns from a wide range of open source systems. ArchEngine helps developers find implementation examples of tactic for a given technical context. It uses information retrieval and program analysis techniques to retrieve applications that implement these design concepts. Furthermore, the search engine lists the code snippets where the patterns/tactics are located. Our case study with 21 professional software developers shows that ArchEngine is more effective than other search engines (e.g. SourceForge and Koders) in helping programmers to quickly find implementations of architectural tactics/patterns

Toward the Development of Semantically-Based Search Systems

Over the past several years, we have conducted a number of empirical studies focusing on the performance of human search intermediaries and indexers. Based on insights from these studies, we have developed a computerized intermediary system (EP-X) that represents document contents as frames, and that uses knowledge-based search tactics to assist information seekers in exploring the contents of such frame-based document databases. Below, we present for discussion several propositions based on our experiences in studying human experts and in building computerized intermediaries

Algebraic Algorithm Design and Local Search

Formal, mathematically-based techniques promise to play an expanding role in the development and maintenance of the software on which our technological society depends. Algebraic techniques have been applied successfully to algorithm synthesis by the use of algorithm theories and design tactics, an approach pioneered in the Kestrel Interactive Development System (KIDS). An algorithm theory formally characterizes the essential components of a family of algorithms. A design tactic is a specialized procedure for recognizing in a problem specification the structures identified in an algorithm theory and then synthesizing a program. Design tactics are hard to write, however, and much of the knowledge they use is encoded procedurally in idiosyncratic ways. Algebraic methods promise a way to represent algorithm design knowledge declaratively and uniformly. We describe a general method for performing algorithm design that is more purely algebraic than that of KIDS. This method is then applied to local search. Local search is a large and diverse class of algorithms applicable to a wide range of problems; it is both intrinsically important and representative of algorithm design as a whole. A general theory of local search is formalized to describe the basic properties common to all local search algorithms, and applied to several variants of hill climbing and simulated annealing. The general theory is then specialized to describe some more advanced local search techniques, namely tabu search and the Kernighan-Lin heuristic

Thesaurus-assisted search term selection and query expansion: a review of user-centred studies

This paper provides a review of the literature related to the application of domain-specific thesauri in the search and retrieval process. Focusing on studies which adopt a user-centred approach, the review presents a survey of the methodologies and results from empirical studies undertaken on the use of thesauri as sources of term selection for query formulation and expansion during the search process. It summaries the ways in which domain-specific thesauri from different disciplines have been used by various types of users and how these tools aid users in the selection of search terms. The review consists of two main sections covering, firstly studies on thesaurus-aided search term selection and secondly those dealing with query expansion using thesauri. Both sections are illustrated with case studies that have adopted a user-centred approach

What are we being told about how to teach games? a three-dimensional analysis of comparative research into different instructional studies in Physical Education and School Sports

Determining what pedagogical approach could be most effective in delivering the desired learning outcomes in teaching games has been one of the more relevant concerns for physical education teachers, coaches and researches in the last few decades. Nevertheless, until recently, the research carried out in this field has been little profuse, has met with several difficulties and has been made from different perspectives, which has complicated its analysis altogether. The present study follows three main objectives: a) to analyse the nature of the interventions used in the comparative investigation directed to teaching sports, b) to determine the effects of the levels of treatment and, c) to outline some didactic consequences. Twenty comparative studies were selected for a systematic review

Toward the Development of Semantically-Based Search Systems

Over the past several years, we have conducted a number of empirical studies focusing on the performance of human search intermediaries and indexers. Based on insights from these studies, we have developed a computerized intermediary system (EP-X) that represents document contents as frames, and that uses knowledge-based search tactics to assist information seekers in exploring the contents of such frame-based document databases. Below, we present for discussion several propositions based on our experiences in studying human experts and in building computerized intermediaries

Evaluating Collaborative Information Seeking Interfaces with a Search-Oriented Inspection Method and Re-framed Information Seeking Theory

Despite the many implicit references to the social contexts of search within Information Seeking and Retrieval research, there has been relatively little work that has specifically investigated the additional requirements for collaborative information seeking interfaces. Here, we re-assess a recent analytical inspection framework, designed for individual information seeking, and then apply it to evaluate a recent collaborative information seeking interface: SearchTogether. The framework was built upon two models of solitary information seeking, and so as part of the re-assessment we first re-frame the models for collaborative contexts. We re-frame a model of search tactics, providing revised definitions that consider known collaborators. We then re-frame a model of user profiles to analyse support for different group dynamics. After presenting an analysis of SearchTogether, we reflect on its accuracy, showing that the framework identified 8 known truths, 8 new insights, and no known-to-be-untrue insights into the design. We conclude that the framework a) can still be applied to collaborative information seeking interfaces; b) can successfully produce additional requirements for collaborative information seeking interfaces; and c) can successfully model different dynamics of collaborating searchers

Concrete Semantics with Coq and CoqHammer

The "Concrete Semantics" book gives an introduction to imperative programming languages accompanied by an Isabelle/HOL formalization. In this paper we discuss a re-formalization of the book using the Coq proof assistant. In order to achieve a similar brevity of the formal text we extensively use CoqHammer, as well as Coq Ltac-level automation. We compare the formalization efficiency, compactness, and the readability of the proof scripts originating from a Coq re-formalization of two chapters from the book