Simplified Component Generation and Retrieval in Agile Environment Using Case Tools

Abstract

The past decade observed a tremendous growth in the software engineering. Several new process models proposed, developed time to time and consistent work in the field of software process engineering is going on. Methodologies of software development like Reuse Based Development, Component Based Development and Agile Software Development (ASD) etc. are proving fertile methodologies in the software industry. These models address different related domains but they are not able to satisfy heterogeneous requirement of software industry. Due to the shift in the customer’s preferences, fast delivery of software has become most prominent factor behind the success of the product and software development organizations. ASD not only shrinks the timeline in software development but cuts the cost also. ASD promises to deliver the product according to the market and customer need.

The problem arises when software reusability comes in picture. Some legacy software systems contains crucial functionalities that can be reused again and again but due to lack of documentation and design in their development, makes it difficult to extract the reusable functionality and also make it very costly and difficult to modify them for the organizations. ASD tends to be simple and domain specific accompanied with minimal support documentation. ASD generates specialized product thereby reduces the scope of reusability. Reuse relies on support documentation and favors more generalized components. Therefore, the problem of reusability arises and the development effort is wasted in agile software development. In order to incorporate reusability in Agile Environment, Reengineering based Component Generation and Retrieval model has been proposed in this thesis. The model has been divided into two phases namely ES phase (Extract and Store phase) and SREM phase (Search, Retrieve, Evaluate and Modify phase). In ES phase, the source code is supplied to a reverse engineering tool to create its design in the form of UML diagrams and using Object Oriented Analysis and Designing (OOAD) the components are identified and stored in component repository. In SREM phase, desired components are searched, retrieved, evaluated and modified according to the requirements and reused in the future projects.