Analyzing Growth Trends of Reusable Software Components

Abstract

Reusable software components are the software modules that can be (re)used across a number of applications in a particular domain. Component users prefer to use those components which can be adapted easily for their changing requirements. So components have to evolve continuously in order to attract users. This chapter focuses on the evolutionary aspects of software components. It mentions various techniques for monitoring software evolution. It uses metrics based analysis as the technique to show software evolution of 15 reusable components from the point of view of their size, complexity, and functionality. The evolution analysis is motivated by laws of software evolution which suggest that as software ages, it increases in size and complexity (unless it is managed) and it has to offer increased functionality to please its users. The findings of the study indicate that the size of the software components (in this data set) grows at a linear rate, and complexity is well managed. However, increase in functionality is sub linear for almost all the components. It remains almost constant for some of them.