In the process of developing and maintaining a software product, many things that are called software artefacts are created and used. There is a huge variety of software artifacts, including project plans, work products (specifications, architectural and detailed projects, code, and documentation), user stories, bug reports, tools. Software artifacts can be different in form and presentation. They can be part of a software product or provide processes for its development and maintenance, be intermediate results of processes, or be a part of other software artifacts. Software artifacts are changed, reused, as well as change relationships in the development and maintenance processes of a software product. Therefore, software artifacts play an important role in the software life cycle, regardless of its model, and require attention of all interested parties. The complexity and variety of software artifact relationships require adequate means of description and management. A mean could be a software artifacts ecosystem. In such an ecosystem, a more detailed level than in the software ecosystem is considered. Nevertheless, at this level, the most of the approaches, methods and tools that are used in the software ecosystem can be used. In the article, a concept of software artifact ecosystem is proposed, and a generalized model of the software artifacts ecosystem is presented. The software artifacts ecosystem is the Cornerstone ecosystem type and consists of three types of actors - the platform, the software, and the artifact. The roles of actors in the ecosystem are indicated, the relationships between actors are described. The types, rules, and attributes of actors, relationships, and actions can be specified for models of specific software attribute ecosystems. The same applies to the requirements for analyzing ecosystem properties. A declarative model of the programming style ecosystem based on the generalized model of the software artifact ecosystem, has been developed. The programming style ensuring the comprehensibility of the source code is an important software artifact in the context of the software life cycle. The application of the programming style requires special attention not only from the developers of the software, but also from the project management. This leads to the need to solve the tasks of choosing or developing a style, its application, analysis of the effectiveness of the use of style and change. These tasks can be effectively solved in the context of a programming style ecosystem. In the programming style ecosystem, description of the processes of creation, changing, and use of the programming style is made by applying ontology.Key words: software engineering, software artifact, programming, programming style, software ecosystem, ontology.
In the development and maintenance of a software product, many things are created and used, which are called artefacts. Artefacts can be different in form and presentation. They can be part of a software product or provide processes for its development and maintenance, be intermediate results of processes, or be part of other artefacts. Thus, there is a huge variety of software artefacts, including, project plans, work products (specifications, architectural and detailed designs, code, documentation), user stories, bug reports, tools, including but not limited to artefact processing. Various and often complex connections are established between artefacts. Artefacts change, are being reused and change connections in the development and maintenance of a software product. Therefore, artefacts play an important role in the life cycle of software regardless of its model and require the attention of all interested parties.
Programming style, while making the source code understandable, is an important artefact in the context of
widespread software multiple use and reuse [
The software industry is constantly evolving and changing. Not only products and technologies are evolving, but many software companies are experimenting with new business models, which sometimes leads to fundamental changes in all industry structures of both the company and its client. Recently, many companies have been using the concept of "software ecosystems" for development, creating these ecosystems around themselves or their products, taking into account the clients’ connections. Ecosystems have shown themselves to be a promising management tool, an evolving software product.
The complexity and variety of software artefact connections require adequate description and management tools. This could be an ecosystem of software artefacts. Such an ecosystem looks at a more detailed level than a software ecosystem, but at this level most of the approaches, methods and tools that are used in a software ecosystem can also be used.
In the article, for the first time, a generic model of the ecosystem of a software artefact is proposed, the application of which is shown on the example of the ecosystem of a programming style. Within the framework of the concept, a generic model of the ecosystem of a software artefact is described, which belongs to the Cornstoun ecosystem type and consists of three actors — platform, software, and artefact. The roles of actors in the ecosystem are indicated, connections between actors are described. Types, rules and attributes of actors, connections and actions can be refined for models of specific ecosystems of the software attribute. The same applies to meeting the requirements for analyzing ecosystem properties.
Based on the generic model of the ecosystem of the software artefact, a declarative model of the ecosystem of the programming style has been developed, which is an artefact that plays an important role in the development and maintenance of software. The description of the processes of creating and using a programming style is made by using the ontology.
Software artefacts. In the life cycle of software, many different auxiliary things (artefacts) are created and used to support the processes of creating and maintaining a software product. Artefacts are created in domain analysis or other lifecycle processes. A wide variety of items are considered as artefacts, from documentation, work products and their parts to supporting tools. By interacting, artefacts enable the efficient execution of lifecycle processes.
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Towards an ecosystem of software artefacts. We are not aware of any paper directly devoted to the
consideration of problems associated with the study of ecosystems of software artefacts. However, there are papers, the
results of which can be used to solve these problems. In paper [
This section discusses a generic model of the software artefact ecosystem. Several methods are now used to
model software ecosystems [
The first group includes the requirements for the definition of actors, connections between them and their actions. In addition, requirements are formulated for determining the types, rules and attributes of actors, connections and actions, as well as requirements for determining the specific characteristics of both the ecosystem as a whole and its elements, for example, productivity, efficiency, security.
The second group includes requirements for defining characteristics that provide an analysis of the ecosystem from incentives and motivation to sustainability and productivity.
The table below lists the actors and roles in the software artefact ecosystem. The ecosystem under
consideration belongs to the Cornerstone type, since the ecosystem is based on a technological platform for developing
and maintaining software, the functionality of which is extended by using artefacts [
Common connections between actors can be specified. The platform, in the context of which such components as a life cycle model, organizational and technical support for development and maintenance are considered, defines and uses an artefact as an auxiliary means of implementing processes and filling the structure of a software product. Software depends on the platform, which is the main means of implementing development and maintenance processes, and directly, as a component in the software structure, or indirectly, as a means of increasing the efficiency of platform processes, uses an artefact.
Types, rules, and attributes of actors, connections, and actions can be refined for models of specific ecosystems
of a software attribute. The same applies to meeting the requirements for the analysis of ecosystem properties [
To date, methods and tools that are based on multiple and repeated use have become widespread for the
development and maintenance of software products. Applying these methods and tools requires the developer to read,
analyze, and understand a significant number of representations of work products from different phases of the life cycle.
Multiple use and reuse are now commonly deployed from requirements specifications to source code and
documentation. Therefore, the requirement of comprehensibility is put forward to the software, one of the main ones.
The developer's activities will be more efficient, the software is understandable, and the development and maintenance
is cheaper when the styles (standards) are applied when creating the software, ensuring the comprehensibility of the
work products of different phases of the life cycle [
Fig. 2 shows a model of a programming style ecosystem, which is built on the basis of a generic model of a software artefact ecosystem (Fig. 1).
The artefact in this model is the programming style, and the actor, which is the software, is represented by the
part of it - the source code for which the programming style is applied. Artefact - the programming style is
platformspecific, as the style rules depend on a number of platform conditions, such as the programming language, management
goals, timeline, risk, and project budget. In its turn, the programming style is used in the creation of the source code and
affects the efficiency of the design and maintenance processes. The use of a programming style involves the
implementation of two processes [
In fig. 3. the ontology of creating a programming style is presented, which describes in more detail the participants and actions taking place in this regard in the ecosystem of the programming style. All ontology concepts are categorized as resources in i* terminology, with the exception of the <<event>> concept, which represents a target. At the same time, the concepts Coding phase, Party, Programming language refer to the Platform actor, and the concepts Creating work product style, Style party create guide, Style and Programming language style to the Programming style actor.
Has-Knowledge-in
* <<kind>> Party style aquire uses *
<<associative>> Style party using guide
1 <<event>> Using work product style
Governs 1 1
Use <<kind>> Programming language style
Is-part-of
* <<kind>> Program 1 aquire 1 1
aquire <<kind>>
Program style
Fig 4. shows an ontology of using a programming style, which also describes the relevant actors and actions in the programming style ecosystem. The Party and Coding phase concepts belong to the Platform actor, the Program, Program style concepts to the Software actor, and the Using work product style, Style party using guide, Program language style concepts to the Programming style actor.
Has-Knowledge-in * 1 *
To implement the processes of creating and using a programming style, tools are created that can be
considered, on the one hand, as resources of the Programming style artefact, and on the other hand, as artefacts as part
of the Platform artefact. These include the programming style knowledge base and the Reasoner (Fig. 5). Thus, the
software developer, while coding the program, applies the ontology of the programming style, both for learning the
style and for checking the observance of the style in the program. Therefore, two tools are required - one to create an
ontology and support the software developer in the coding process, and the second one, to control the application of the
programming style in the source code of the program [
The style analyst, using Protégé, tunes the ontology to the appropriate programming style, creating a TBox (Fig. 6). After setting up, the software developer, using the ontology, is getting used to the programming style with the help of Protégé. The second tool is functionally similar to the Reasoner, but the function of identifying style errors (Style Errors) is added. In terms of descriptive logic, the Reasoner verifies the compatibility of the ontology (Fig. 6).
Protégé is used to create TBox, part of an ontology, which contains terms that describe a style of programming. Assertions about the source code (ABox) written by the software developer are generated by the corresponding part of the Reasoner, as it provides the corresponding service using the knowledge base (TBox and ABox). The service includes, firstly, the verification of the compatibility of the ontology (a direct function of the Reasoner), and secondly, the search for stylistic errors in the source code of the program.
Existing approaches to the study of artifacts and tools for their use in the context of the software life cycle are aimed at
developing software of a certain type, implementing specific processes or using specific development methods (section
2). Only a unified, systems approach can provide a fundamental basis for the research and use of artifacts in the
software life cycle. The purpose of the research in our article is to show that usage of the software ecosystem research
methodology, but at a more detailed software artefact level, is productive. An example of a programming style
ecosystem case study based on the author's works [
For the first time, the concept of a software artefact ecosystem is proposed. Within the framework of the concept, a generic model of the ecosystem of a software artefact is described, which belongs to the Cornstoun ecosystem type and consists of three actors — platform, software, and artefact. The roles of actors in the ecosystem are indicated, connections between actors are described. Types, rules and attributes of actors, connections and actions can be refined for models of specific ecosystems of the software attribute. The same applies to meeting the requirements for analyzing ecosystem properties.
Based on the generic model of the ecosystem of the software artefact, a declarative model of the ecosystem of the programming style has been developed, which is an artefact that plays an important role in the development and maintenance of software. The description of the processes of creating and using a programming style is made by using the ontology.
In continuation of the presentation of the ecosystem, the description of the actors of the ecosystem of the programming style will be expanded and the types, rules and attributes of actors, connections and actions will be developed. In addition, it is proposed to consider the metric provision of the ecosystem in relation to determining the efficiency, sustainability and reliability of the ecosystem of the programming style.