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About Lero Research

Lero is the Irish software research centre.It brings together leading software research teams from Universities and Institutes of Technology in a coordinated centre of research excellence with a strong industry focus. Lero has raised the level and profile of Irish software research with such effect that it is now one of the best known and highly regarded software-related research centres in the world.  The centre has the proven capacity to attract and retain global research leaders and to make a substantial contribution both to software-related research and to the Irish economy. The Lero Centre is supported by a Research Centre grant from SFI, by other state grants, by industry contributions and by external funding (particularly the EU’s research programmes). Lero interfaces with a wide range of industry, state agencies, educational bodies and international collaborators to deliver on its twin goals of research excellence and social and economic relevance.

Towards a taxonomy of software change

Abstract

Previous taxonomies of software change have focused on the purpose of the change (i.e., the why) rather than the underlying mechanisms. This paper proposes a taxonomy of software change based on characterizing the mechanisms of change and the factors that influence these mechanisms. The ultimate goal of this taxonomy is to provide a framework that positions concrete tools, formalisms and methods within the domain of software evolution. Such a framework would considerably ease comparison between the various mechanisms of change. It would also allow practitioners to identify and evaluate the relevant tools, methods and formalisms for a particular change scenario. As an initial step towards this taxonomy, the paper presents a framework that can be used to characterize software change support tools and to identify the factors that impact on the use of these tools. The framework is evaluated by applying it to three different change support tools and by comparing these tools based on this analysis