Software Reuse is a well known method for software production. People believe that it inreases the productivity and the quality of the resulting software artifacts. In the last few years we have seen an emphasis on getting results from empirical analysis of real applications of reuse. However, such results are still to come. One reason could be that we need to wait more time. Another reason could be that still there are not enough enabling technologies for software reuse to succeed.
This special issue focuses on the latter point. The papers analyze topics which could have a strong impact for software reuse, if successful. The first paper is on domain analysis. It describes a model that reengineers a formal domain model out of an existing system and generalizes the existing system to an application generator. The second paper presents the application of a fuzzy techniques to identify and retrieve suitable components. The third is about the usage of Cooperative Knowledge Processing to support the reuse process. CKP uses the web of shared understanding: specific knowledge based applications during the two important reuse processes (design for reuse and design with reuse) give a great increase in the efficiency of using reuse, having an appropriate repository co-operating with appropriate intelligent programs. The fourth is the application of complexity analysis to select which indexing technique suits best a given environment.
Giancarlo Succi
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering