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We propose that collaborative software visualization can
improve team software maintenance. We first review how
visualization can support software maintenance from the
perspectives of system understanding, process understanding and
software evolution. From this, we conclude that visualization
tools are rarely designed to provide explicit support for
collaborative authoring and sharing of views. We then provide an
overview of research from a Computer Supported Cooperative Work
perspective, and propose that this research should be applied to
software visualization. We explore the opportunities and
challenges this research focus presents and conclude that more
attention paid to the social aspects of software visualization
should improve both individual and team processes in software
maintenance.
Continue reading "Frontiers of Software Maintenance: Remixing Visualization to Support Collaboration in Software Maintenance"

Change is an essential characteristic of software development, as software
systems must respond to evolving requirements, platforms, and other
environmental pressures. In this paper, we discuss the concept of software
evolution from several perspectives. We examine how it relates to and
differs from software maintenance. We discuss insights about software
evolution arising from Lehman's laws of software evolution and the staged
lifecycle model of Bennett and Rajlich. We compare software evolution to
other kinds of evolution, from science and social sciences, and we examine
the forces that shape change. Finally, we discuss the changing nature of
software in general as it relates to evolution, and we propose open
challenges and future directions for software evolution research.
Continue reading "Frontiers of Software Maintenance: the Past, Present, and Future of Software Evolution"

Abstract

The source code of a software system is in constant change. The impact of these changes spreads out across the software system and
may lead to the sudden manifestation of failures in unchanged parts. To help developers fix such failures, we propose a method that, in a
pre-processing stage, analyzes prior code changes to determine what functions have been modified. Next, given a particular period of time in the past,
the functions changed during this period are propagated throughout the rest of the system using the dependence graph of the system.
This information is visualized using Change Impact Graphs (CIGs). Through a case study based on the Apache Web Server, we demonstrate
the benefit of using CIGs to investigate several real defects.
Continue reading "Change Impact Graphs: Determining the Impact of Prior Code Changes"

Today CTV has announced that it has acquired the rights to the jingle in "perpetuity". Quote from the article: "It's wonderful to have been able to save it," Brace said. "It was headed to obscurity. It was going to fade away and we're glad we were able to make a deal, buy the rights in perpetuity for all platforms. You're going to hear a lot of it."

According to Canadian copyright law, the copyright of a song is owned by its authors. Its term expires 50 years after his/her death. The copyright to the jingle appears to be own by Dolores Calman, who is still alive. If the copyright is owned by her company "Copyright Music & Visuals" then it will expire 50 years after its first performance (2018).

As a consequence the right to the jingle is not to perpetuity. It is only until its copyright expires.

Also, it will be likely that CBC will probably enforce its right to the trademark "Hockey Night in Canada" so you will probably stop hearing Dolores Calman and CTV referring to the jingle by that name. She in facts calls it "The Hockey Theme".

If she really cared that it became 'Canada's Second National Anthem' then she should have put it in the public domain. You can't have a "National Anthem" that can't be performed in public without a license.

--dmg

This is turning to be a good year. We just got informed that our submission for a special issue of the Journal of Software Maintenance and Evolution was accepted for publication: Continue reading "A Survey and Evaluation of Tool Features for Understanding Reverse Engineering Diagrams"

We submitted a short paper to the Eclipse challenge of MSR'08 and it was accepted. It is to be presented and published during MSR at Leipzig in May 2008. Work mainly done by Israel Herraiz, of the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, with the collaboration of Jesus Gonzáles Barahona and Gregorio Robles.

Continue reading "Towards a Simplification of the Bug Report Form in Eclipse"

Are you curious to know how to get a 0.1 gigapixels camera? Keep reading...

Continue reading "100 Megapixels: Mamiya 7 II and 80mm lens"

I spent some time today trying to figure out how to configure this touch screen. I tried the drivers linked by fido-dido999, but they did not work for me. If you follow these instructions you should be able to get your touch screen working. It assumes that you place the ribbon cable to the bottom left.


Continue reading "Configuring the touch screen from fido-dido999 for the EEE under EEExubuntu linux"

The International Workshop on Mining Software Repositories has evolved into a Working Conference. They notified us today with the results. This paper was written by Abram Hindle (who did his MSc with me, and is now at UWaterloo), Ric Holt and myself.

Continue reading "What do large commits tell us? A taxonomical study of large commits"

Peter Rigby, who is doing his PhD under the supervision of Peggy Storey and me, is working on code reviews in open source. He is the main author of this paper where we study the code review process of Apache. It is to be presented at the next International Conference in Software Engineering (ICSE), 2008. Continue reading " Open source software peer review practices: A case study of the Apache server"

This is my first published paper of the year. It took two years between the time it was submitted and it was published. Email me if you want a draft version. Continue reading "Managing legal Risks associated with intellectual property on the web"

I accept, I am terribly bad at advertising my own research. So I am going to start doing it. Here are the papers I published last year. Email me if you want a copy of either one of them (and it is not currently liked):

Continue reading "Papers 2007"

These are my publications during 2006: Continue reading "Paper 2006"

These are my publications during 2005:



Continue reading "Papers 2005"

Here are my papers for 2004, organized by type: Continue reading "Papers 2004"