On the Need for Tools to Support Search in Software Reuse: a Perspective Paper Presented to Seer Technologies, Inc.

Abstract

Software reuse in the presence of a repository and object-based CASE tool is likely to be "biased." Priorresearch (Banker, Kauffman and Zweig, 1991) showed that a developer will be: most likely to reuse herown objects; somewhat less likely to reuse objects developed by her project team members; and, even lesslikely to reuse objects stored in the repository, but developed elsewhere in the corporation. This papercharacterizes this problem in terms of three familiarity biases: personal bias, project bias and time bias. Inthe presence of these biases it is appropriate to deploy tools that support the search for software reuse, sothat they may be overcome. However, the tools that are chosen or created for this purpose mustadequately treat the technical and cognitive fundamentals for individual developers, and recognize theorganizational and economic perspectives of a firm that wishes to maximize the business value of itssoftware development activities.