Reusability in software engineering

This paper surveys recent work concerning reusability in software engineering. The current directions in software reusability are discussed, and the two major approaches of reusable building blocks and reusable patterns studied. An extensive bibliography, parts of which are annotated, is included

A Multi-Faceted Software Reusability Model: The Quintet Web.

Over the past decade, problems in software development and maintenance have increased rapidly. The size of software has grown explosively, complexity of software applications has increased, the nature of software applications has become more critical, and large quantities of software to be maintained have accumulated. During the same time, the productivity of individual software engineers has not improved proportionally. Software reusability is widely believed to be a key to help overcome the ongoing software crisis by improving software productivity and quality. However, the promise of software reusability has not yet been fulfilled. We present a multi-faceted software reusability model, a Quintet Web, that enables designers to reuse software artifacts from all phases. The Quintet Web consists of links of five types of reuse support information among existing document blocks: semantic, horizontal, hierarchical, syntactic, and alternative relationships. The five types of reuse support information are named the Semantic Web, the Horizontal Web, the Vertical Web, the Syntactic Web, and the Alternative Web. The Semantic Web defines the operational functionality of each software block. The Horizontal Web links functionally identical blocks of all phases. The Vertical Web identifies hierarchical relationships of software blocks. The Syntactic Web forms a chain from the declaration of each variable to its uses for all variables. The Alternative Web enables software developers to select an alternative algorithm for an identical functionality. The Quintet Web supports both software development and maintenance. When the Quintet Web is applied to development process, it provides software developers a means to check the consistency of the software being developed. The Quintet Web model is independent of a specific software development method

ISA S88 / Loose Coupling Based Solution for Production Control Software Reusability

A solution for the problem of reusability of software system for batch production systems is proposed. It is based on ISA S88 standard that prescribes the abstraction of elements in the manufacturing system that is equipment, processes and procedures abstraction, required to make a product batch. An easy to apply data scheme, compatible with the standard, is developed for management of production information. In addition to flexibility provided by the S88 standard, software system reusability requires a solution supporting manufacturing equipment reconfigurability. Toward this end a coupling mechanism is developed. A software tool, including these solutions, was developed and validated at laboratory level, using product manufacturing information of an actual plant

Comparative analysis of software reusability attributes in web and mobile applications

Software reuse is an important approach to software engineering, where it aims to use previous software components to create new software systems. Reusability minimizes work repetition, development time, cost, efforts, and increases systems reliability. Reusability measurements help developers to provide the right metrics for measuring the reusability attributes and to identify reusable components among the wealth of existing programs. The main problem encountered in software reuse is the proper selection of the right software component for reuse due to similarity between the desired functionality and the function of the retrieved software component. In addition, it is difficult to define the right metrics that capture important quality attributes of a given class. This research aims to identify and measure the attributes that affect the software components reusability in two open source web and mobile applications. It also aims to compare the usage rate of reusability components in these applications to decide their ability to reuse. Four attributes were selected due to their impacts on reusability namely flexibility, portability, variability and understandability. Five metrics were identified to measure these attributes based on specified formulas. The metrics are Coupling Between Object (CBO), Lack Of Cohesion (LCOM), Depth Of Inheritance (DIT), Number Of Children (NOC) and Line Of Code (LOC). The research results indicate that the same attributes and metrics are suitable for measuring the reusability components in both applications. The comparison between the two applications for reuse indicates that the web application is more difficult for reuse than the mobile application