A reverse engineering approach to support software maintenance: version control knowledge extraction

TLDR

Traditional reverse engineering tools provide source‑code abstraction and visual architecture, aiding maintenance but falling short for large teams with moderate turnover. The study examines whether software process data—artifact change history and developer activity—can supply developers with additional information for maintenance in large teams. The authors evaluate Xia, a tool that combines software artifacts with their version history, to test this hypothesis. The evaluation shows Xia’s usefulness and outlines future research directions.

Abstract

Most traditional reverse engineering tools focus on abstraction and analysis of source code, presenting a visual representation of the software architecture. This approach can be both helpful and cost effective in software maintenance tasks. However, where large software teams are concerned, with moderate levels of employee turnover, traditional reverse engineering tools can be inadequate. To address this issue, we examine the use of software process data, such as software artifact change history and developer activities. We propose the application of this data confers additional information developers need to better understand, maintain and develop software in large team settings. To explore this hypothesis, we evaluate the use of a tool, Xia, in the navigation of both software artifacts and their version history. This work introduces Xia, reveals the results of our evaluation and proposes directions for future research in this area.