A fundamental unit of work in programming is the code contribution (“commit”) that a developer makes to the code base of the project in work. We use statistical methods to derive a model of the probabilistic distribution of commit sizes in open source projects and we show that the model is applicable to different project sizes. We use both graphical as well as statistical methods to validate th...

In this contribution we present tool support addressing the multiple perspectives problem. For organizing and integrating multiple stakeholders, the development processes and notations they use, and the partial specifications they produce we use the ViewPoints framework. A formalization of the ViewPoints framework based on distributed graph transformation builds the foundation of our tool. Intr...

Select the best tool for developing a system is a complex process. There must be considered several aspects corresponding to the domain where the system is going to run. Generally, the domain characteristics only are comprehended by experts. They know very well which are the main characteristics, how they can be combined and which should not be considered. This knowledge is fundamental to selec...

The agent-oriented approach has been successfully applied to the solution of complex problems in dynamic open environments. However, to extend its use to mainstream computing and industrial environments, appropriate software tools are needed. Arguably, software methodologies form the most important type of these software tools. Although several agent-oriented methodologies have been proposed to...

Many software development tools and environments are considered useful because they beneficially reengineer developer cognition. Consequently, to design useful computer tools in cognitive work domains such as software development, one needs to be able to appreciate the possibilities for improving cognition. We argue that to do this, designers need more appropriate cognitive theories and models....

Software companies keep evolving their methods for software production, due to the continuous changes in the organizational, technological, and societal context. Implementing changes to existing methods is a complex activity, which depends not only on understanding ‘what’ to alter, but also on defining ‘how’ to apply the changes. Approaches in the literature are mainly focused on the ‘what’, pr...

Software design is a challenging task. Nowadays, no single designer is able to developer a software alone due to the complexity of the current applications. This suggests that software development is a cooperative activity. As cooperative, software development tools need support awareness in order for usable and useful applications to be developed. This paper describes a set of requirements bas...

A. Akerman J. Tyree In this paper we propose an approach to software development that focuses on architecture decisions and involves the use of ontology. In this approach the architecture is captured by an instance of an ontology. The ontology has four major components: architecture assets, architecture decisions, stakeholder concerns, and an architecture roadmap. We illustrate our approach thr...

Although much attention is being paid to business processes during the past decades, the design of business processes and particularly workflow processes is still more art than science. In this workshop paper, we present our view on modeling methods for workflow processes and introduce our research aiming for the development of an “intelligent” software tool for workflow process redesign. This ...

Digital signal processors (DSPs) have become a key component for the design of communications ICs. Application customization leads to key market advantages but also to enormous problems of having too many different DSPs and their software development tools. First, by analysis of the problem open issues are pointed out. Then, a possible solution named CATS is presented, which allows for customiz...