Software Analysis, Evolution, Maintenance and Visualization

Dear Colleagues,

The development and maintenance of software systems involve a large number of complex processes that extend over long periods of time and may involve many software engineers in different locations and countries. These complex processes are cyclic and conform to the basis of software evolution: software changes are based on the current state of the software project, which is the accumulation of previous changes made by several software engineers. In this context, several tools, such as logs, communication systems and defect-tracking systems keep records with dates, comments, changes made to software elements and details of the associated programmers.

Software development and maintenance usually expands over several years, generating thousands and even millions of lines of source code (LOC), hundreds of software components and thousands of commits, variables, constants, programming structures, methods and intricate relationships among software items.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Methods to monitor the evolution of the quality of software elements (i.e., classes, packages and modules), taking into account the use of software quality metrics.
• Mechanisms for the measurement and analysis of task execution, progress analysis and performance prediction.
• Methods to assist in risk management and to control the size and complexity of the software product.
• Instruments to keep project managers informed on collaboration patterns between developers.
• Approaches to study synchronous and asynchronous changes, as well as their implications (in terms of quality and functionality).
• Methods to understand and comprehend software systems and their recent changes and evolution.
• Comprehension of the sociotechnical relationships derived from the development process.
• Software tools for software analysis, evolution and maintenance.
• Software analysis, parsing and fact extraction.
• Software evolution analysis.
• Mining software repositories, software analytics and software visualization.

Dr. Antonio González-Torres
Guest Editor

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