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Replication package for the submitted study with title:An empirical investigation on the competences and roles of practitioners in Microservices-based Architectures. The replication package includes resulted visualisations and intermediary results, as well as the source code and raw data of the analysis conducted in the study.&nbsp

Software is the main driver of added-value in many of the systems that surround us. While its complexity is increasing, so is the diversity of systems driven by software. To meet the challenges emerging from this combination, it is necessary to mobilize increasingly large and heterogeneous multidisciplinary teams, comprising software experts, as well as experts from various domains related to the systems driven by software. Hence, the quality of communication about software between stakeholders of different domains and with different personalities is becoming a key issue for successfully engineering software-intensive systems. The goal of this study, thus, is to investigate the effect of the representation of software design models on the communication of design decisions between stakeholders with diverse personality traits. As a result, this study finds that graphical representations of software design models are better than textual representations in enhancing the communication and increasing the productivity of stakeholders with diverse personalities.

Raw data analyzed, codes, memos and supplementary material for submission.&nbsp

An interview guide with examples of coding and memos developed in analysis.

Interview guide that was used of the semi-structured interviews for the Grounded Theory study on microservices migrations.

More and more high tech companies are struggling with the maintenance of legacy software. Legacy software is vital to many organizations, so even if its behavior is not completely understood it cannot be thrown away. To re-factor or re-engineer the legacy software components, the external behavior needs to be preserved after replacement so that the replaced components possess the same behavior in the system environment as the original components. Therefore, it is necessary to first completely understand the behavior of components over the interfaces, i.e., the interface protocols, and preserve this behavior during the software modification activities. For this purpose, we present an approach to infer the interface protocols of software components, from the behavioral models of those components learned with a blackbox technique, called active automata learning. We then perform a formal comparison between learned models and reference models ensuring the behavioral relations are preserved. This provides a validation for the learned results, thus developing confidence in applying the active learning technique to reverse engineer the legacy software components in the future.

Collaborative modeling is gaining a growing interest in both academia and industry. However, several research challenges remain open, including scalability, support for multi-user modeling environments, model versioning, migration, comparison, merging and conflict management. The workshop aims at assessing the state of the art and practice on Collaborative MDE, creating new synergies between tool vendors, researchers, and practitioners, informing the community about the new means for collaborative MDE, and identifying needs and research gaps in the collaborative MDE area. COMMitMDE 2018 brought together researchers and practitioners to explore (i) the impact of collaborative SE methods and principles on MDE practices and (ii) how MDE methods and techniques can support collaborative software engineering activities.

Empirical software engineering 25(6), 4472-4472 (2020). doi:10.1007/s10664-020-09889-6, Published by Springer Science + Business Media B.V, Dordrecht [u.a.]

International audience

The growing complexity of everyday life systems (and devices) over the last decades has forced the industry to use and investigate different development techniques to manage the many different aspects of the systems. In this context, the use of model driven engineering (MDE) has emerged and is now common practice for many engineering disciplines. However, this comes with important challenges. As set of main challenges relates to the fact that different modeling techniques, languages, and tools are required to deal with the different system aspects, and that support is required to ensure consistence and coherence between the different models. This paper identifies a number of the challenges and paints a roadmap on how tooling can support a multi-model integrated way of working.

Model-based approaches promote the use of models and related artifacts (such as metamodels and model transformations) as central elements to tackle the complexity of building systems. Both in academia and in industry there is a growing need to efficiently i) store; ii) analyze; and ii) search & navigate, and iii) curate large collections of models. Such collections include for example large sets of software models such as the Lindholmen UML dataset [1], or of heterogeneous models in large MDE ecosystems and systems-of-systems, including e.g. software, hardware, and business models. The workshop Analytics and Mining of Model Repositories (AMMoRe) aims to gather modelling researchers and practitioners to discuss the emerging problems and propose solutions. The scope ranges from industrial reports and empirical analyses in the problem domain to novel cross-disciplinary approaches for large-scale analytics and management, e.g. exploiting techniques from data analytics, repository mining and machine learning.

Model-Driven Engineering and Software Product Lines promote the use of models as central artifacts for a variety of activities including domain analysis and generative software development. As these paradigms gain popularity, the number and variety of models in use increase. Several initiatives to gather models in repositories exist, such as ATL Zoo for metamodels or S.P.L.O.T. for feature models, aiming for public access and reuse. However, as those repositories are only partly or not at all curated, the growing number of models leads to problems such as duplicates a.k.a. clones, and lack of repository overview. This makes both repository management and model searching/reuse very hard. We address this issue for S.P.L.O.T. by adapting SAMOS, our generic model analytics framework for feature model comparison. We perform two exploratory case studies. First, we aim for getting a high level repository overview with large clusters and their domains. Secondly, we try to get clusters of highly similar models, to be interpreted as duplicates or clones. We conclude our approach is applicable for feature models and can improve the use and maintenance of S.P.L.O.T.

International audience

International audience

International audience

This report documents the captured MDE history of Carmeq GmbH, in context of the project Evolution of MDE Settings in Practice. The goal of the project is the elicitation of MDE approaches and their evolution. Dieser technische Bericht dokumentiert wie sich der MDE Ansatz zur Entwicklung von Softwarestandardisierungsdokumenten bei der Carmeq GmbH im Laufe der Zeit verändert hat. Diese Historie wurde im Rahmen des Projektes "Evolution of MDE Settings in Practice" (Evolution von MDE Ansätzen in der Praxis) erstellt. Ziel dieses Projektes ist die Erhebung von MDE Ansätzen und ihrer Evolution.

International audience

MDE techniques are more and more used in praxis. However, there is currently a lack of detailed reports about how different MDE techniques are integrated into the development and combined with each other. To learn more about such MDE settings, we performed a descriptive and exploratory field study with SAP, which is a worldwide operating company with around 50.000 employees and builds enterprise software applications. This technical report describes insights we got during this study. For example, we identified that MDE settings are subject to evolution. Finally, this report outlines directions for future research to provide practical advises for the application of MDE settings. Techniken der modellgetriebenen Entwicklung (MDE) werden mehr und mehr in der Praxis eingesetzt. Dabei gibt es wenige detaillierte Berichte darüber wie unterschiedliche MDE-Techniken kombiniert und in die Entwicklung integriert werden. Die vorliegende beschreibende Feldstudie dient dem Zweck, in SAP genutzte MDE-Ansätze detailliert zu beschreiben. SAP ist ein weltweit operierendes Unternehmen, hat ca. 50 000 Mitarbeiter und stellt Softwarelösungen für Firmen her. Der vorliegende technische Bericht beschreibt die Einblicke die wir in dieser Studie erhalten haben. Dazu gehört die Einsicht, dass MDE Ansätze einer Evolution unterliegen. Schließlich umreißt dieser Bericht mögliche Richtungen für zukünftige Forschung um praktische Ratschläge für die Gestaltung von MDE Ansätzen geben zu können.

Through the more and more widespread application of model-driven engineering (MDE) and the increasing diversity in applied modeling paradigms within single projects, there is an increasing need to capture not only models in isolation but also their relations. This paper is a survey on techniques capturing such relations, such as megamodels or macromodels, based on existing scientific literature. Therefore, we consider various definitions of these techniques. We further examine characteristics of the different techniques. We will propose a unified core definition of a megamodel that captures the core properties of megamodels and which can be extended to the needs of the different applications of megamodels. Finally, we give an outlook on arising application areas for megamodels., Electronic Communications of the EASST, Volume 42: Multi-Paradigm Modeling 2010

Technical debt analysis is used to detect problems in a codebase. Most technical debt indicators rely on measuring the quality of the code, as developers tend to induce recurring technical debt that emerges along with evolution cycles. This debt can emerge when project pressure leads to process deviations, for instance. In agile methods like Scrum, such deviations are commonly known as ScrumButs (like Scrum but …), which can be considered as a form of process debt. In this paper, we investigate two recurring signs of process debt (i.e. code smells and anti-patterns) caused by Scrumbuts. Our contribution investigates typical ScrumBut practices found in agile projects in one company and we report the relationships found between problems in code and ScrumBut issues. Our findings identify three types of ScrumButs, their root causes, and how these relate to concrete code smells and anti-patterns. peerReviewed

Agile companies are not uniform. Consequently, agile transformations are conceived broadly, ranging from adopting agile methods and practices in software development teams or functions to building all-encompassing enterprise agility. Moreover, the targeted effects of agility may vary, and the success of transformations and the attainment of agility are measured in various ways. In this paper, based on a recent industrial survey study, we scrutinize holistically why companies want to transform, what types of agility they are aiming at, and how they gauge transformations. The survey data was collected during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Most of the respondents were in large or very large companies in Finland and Sweden in diverse industry domains. The main findings indicate that there are many reasons for companies to transform both to improve external outcomes (fore mostly responsiveness) and to develop internal capabilities (adaptability, organizational learning). Companies seemed to have aims and goals with respect to all types of agility, including business agility. As the nature of transformations and the companies’ aims and goals vary, the transformations follow various means and measures. As a conclusion, for the hybrid era, we advise companies to consider how agility has benefited during the pandemic era, how hybrid work possibly affects the goals for agile transformations and the different facets of agility, and how to sustain agility in hybrid work. peerReviewed

Test-Driven Development (TDD) has been claimed to increase external software quality. However, the extent to which TDD increases external quality has been seldom studied in industrial experiments. We conduct four industrial experiments in two different companies to evaluate the performance of TDD on external quality. We study whether the performance of TDD holds across the premises of the same company and across companies. We identify participant-level characteristics impacting results. Iterative-Test Last (ITL), the reverse approach of TDD, outperforms TDD in three out of four premises. ITL outperforms TDD in both companies. The larger the experience with unit testing and testing tools, the larger the difference in performance between ITL and TDD (in favour of ITL). Technological environment (i.e., programming language and testing tool) seems not to impact results. Evaluating participant-level characteristics impacting results in industrial experiments may ease the understanding of TDD’s performance in realistic settings.

© 2018 CEUR-WS. All rights reserved.Context: The “Physics of Notations” (PoN) supports a systematic improvement of the cognitive effectiveness of visual modelling languages. Problem: PoN focuses on the concrete syntax of a language, building on a predefined abstract syntax. We should also consider the abstract syntax of a language when developing efforts to improve it by choosing the most adequate language constructs (concepts and their relationships). We instantiate this challenge by comparing two Multi-Agent Systems Domain Specific Languages: SEA_ML++ and DSML4MAS, and assessing the extent to which their respective constructs affect the developer experience. Method: We will perform a quasi-experiment for comparing how practitioners use both languages to solve similar modelling challenges. The experiment will have a cross-over within-subjects design and will focus on the extent to which the different language constructs impact on developer experience. These tasks will be monitored, so that we can assess their success and effort involved, including eye-tracking information. Results: This paper reports on the planned study design for this empirical comparison of two DSLs for MAS.

Software Engineering as an industry is highly diverse in terms of development methods and practices. Practitioners employ a myriad of methods and tend to further tailor them by e.g. omitting some practices or rules. This diversity in development methods poses a challenge for software engineering education, creating a gap between education and industry. General theories such as the Essence Theory of Software Engineering can help bridge this gap by presenting software engineering students with higher-level frameworks upon which to build an understanding of software engineering methods and practical project work. In this paper, we study Essence in an educational setting to evaluate its usefulness for software engineering students while also investigating barriers to its adoption in this context. To this end, we observe 102 student teams utilize Essence in practical software engineering projects during a semester long, project-based course., Preprint submitted and accepted to the 2018 International Conference on Product-Focused Software Process Improvement (PROFES2018)

The model-driven software development (MDSD) vision has booked significant advances in the past decades. MDSD is said to be very promising in tackling the “wicked” problems of software engineering including development of safety-critical software. However, MDSD technologies are fragmented as these are typically limited to a single phase in the software development lifecycle. It seems unclear how to practically combine the various approaches into an integrated model-driven software development process. In this experience report, we present an end-to-end MDSD process that supports safety-critical software development from the point of view of Space Applications Services, an industrial aerospace company. The proposed development process is a bottom-up solution based on the state of the practice and the needs of Space Applications Services. The process integrates every software development activity starting from requirements definition all the way to the verification and validation activities. Furthermore, we have created an integrated toolchain that supports the presented MDSD process. We have performed an initial evaluation of both the process and the toolset on a case study of an On-Board Control Procedure Engine. ispartof: pages:28-37 ispartof: 1st International Workshop on Model-Driven Development Processes and Practices co-located with ACM/IEEE 17th International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages & Systems (MoDELS 2014) vol:1249 pages:28-37 ispartof: Model-Driven Development Processes and Practices location:Valencia, SPAIN date:28 Sep - 28 Sep 2014 status: published

International audience; Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs) developers aim to narrow the gap between the level of abstraction used by domain users and the one provided by the DSL, in order to help taming the increased complexity of computer systems and real-world problems. The quality in use of a DSL is essential for its successful adoption. We illustrate how a usability evaluation process can be weaved into the development process of a concrete DSL-FlowSL-used for specifying humanitarian campaign processes lead by an international Non-Governmental Organization. FlowSL is being developed following an agile process using Model-Driven Development (MDD) tools, to cope with vague and poorly understood requirements in the beginning of the development process.

Collaborative modeling is gaining a growing interest in both academia and industry. However, several research challenges remain open, including scalability, support for multi-user modeling environments, model versioning, migration, comparison, merging and conflict management. The workshop aims at assessing the state of the art and practice on Collaborative MDE, creating new synergies between tool vendors, researchers, and practitioners, informing the community about the new means for collaborative MDE, and identifying needs and research gaps in the collaborative MDE area. COMMitMDE 2018 brought together researchers and practitioners to explore (i) the impact of collaborative SE methods and principles on MDE practices and (ii) how MDE methods and techniques can support collaborative software engineering activities.