Workshop Description

During the last ten years tools and techniques for the reverse engineering of existing code have been proposed and implemented. However, no systematic attempt has been made to validate their usability and usefulness in the field, through empirical studies. In order to accompany this discipline toward its maturity, it is of fundamental importance to investigate the most cost-effective way to introduce the proposed methods into the software development and evolution process.

The kinds of results that can be obtained from the execution of empirical studies include:

comparisons between control groups and groups using reverse engineering;
usability assessments;
cost-effectiveness of various approaches;
identification of actual reverse engineering needs;
indications for tool improvement.

Such results represent a major step forward for reverse engineering. In fact, they allow an initial identification of the most important problems and approaches that deserve further investigation. Moreover, they can isolate those techniques and tools that have already reached a maturity level such as to make them usable in the field with a positive cost-benefit balance.

Objectives

The first objective of the workshop will be the definition of a taxonomy of the existing techniques and approaches. Such a classification is expected to form the basis for the empirical studies, by providing the main dimensions of the reverse engineering space.

The empirical validations of different reverse engineering techniques and tools are expected to show several similarities. Correspondingly, we will have the opportunity to discuss the features of a general framework for the empirical studies which aim at assessing the potential role of reverse engineering in software evolution. The preliminary definition of such a framework is the second workshop's objective.

Submissions (position papers)

Express your position with respect to the workshop's theme and the two workshop's objectives in a 2-5 pages long position paper. Send your position paper to tonella@fbk.eu (CC: step2005@swen.uwaterloo.ca) by August 22, 2005. Notification of position paper acceptance will be sent by August 29, 2005.