PSEEs modelling for supporting and improving collaborative joint software development projects

This paper presents a collaborative software development platform allowing traditional and virtual universities actors who are geographically distant to work on a software development project using common (usual) programming languages. In the context of the virtual universities operating in the field of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), pratical classes are needed to acquire and to enhance the necessary skills particularly in software engineering. To the various actors of these digital and traditional universities making some e-learning, this paper supplies a preconfigured collaborative software development environment including synchronization of files belonging to a given project, instant messaging, audio and video. Our platform has an administration interface allowing the management of permissions and preconfigured virtual machines allocation to the various actors. To reach our goals, we used the XMPP protocol for instant messaging and file synchronization. Then, we used WebRTC for audio and video between actors. Finally, we used the RDP protocol to allow the access to the virtual machines. In this work, we show how our platform was used by the Virtual University of the Senegal (UVS) teachers and students in the field of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science for some pratical classes about C/C++, Java, Python and PHP programming languages.

PSEE (Process-centered Software Engineering Environment) can manage and monitor software process. Software process modeling language is a core element in PSEE system. Due to the particularity and the complexity, software process model includes multi-views: activity view, product view and role view, which should be considered in modeling software process. Based on the similarity between multi-view software process modeling and object Petri nets, this paper proposes the MOPN-SP-net model which is a multi-view software process model based on multi-object Petri nets. The model includes twolevel models: system net and object net. A multi-view paradigm including activity views and product views is provided. Activity views are described by system nets and product views are described by object nets. MOPN-SP-net includes multi-views of software process model, which is characterized with clearer hierarchy, simpler structure, and more extendibility.

Software systems are developed by software projects. A software project generally associates with a process (software development process). A software project's process can be managed by process‐centered software engineering environments (PSEEs). In other words, PSEEs facilitate monitoring software projects. When a software project is being executed, many details may be uncertain in the early phases of the project. Therefore, managing uncertainty of a project's process becomes necessary. We identified existing approaches that can manage process uncertainty. Nevertheless, existing approaches suffer from drawbacks such as resource wasting. We thus propose two new approaches, which are pre‐defined semantics and incremental process program development. The former approach prevents duplicating the same code in a process program and the latter handles both predictable and unpredictable process uncertainty. This paper primarily presents the new approaches.

Process-centered software engineering environments (PSEEs) facilitate controlling complicated software processes. Traditional PSEEs are generally centrally controlled, which may result in the following drawbacks: (1) the server may become a bottleneck and (2) when the server is down, processes need to be suspended. To overcome the drawbacks, we developed a decentralized process engine ADPE (agent-based decentralized process engine). ADPE can be embedded in any PSEE to decentralize the PSEE to This paper presents ADPE.

Software engineering environments have a history of about two decades. Early environments provided support for small fragments of the software process (usually focusing on programming-in-the small). Then there was a trend towards support for more complete software processes (from early phases like requirements analysis and design down to testing and configuration management). Ten years ago the notion of process-centered software engineering environments initiated a new field in software engineering: software process research. The key idea is to use a model of a software process as input parameter for a software engineering environment. The environment is supposed to “behave” in accordance to the process model. Some aspects of this vision became true, others turned out to be of little practicability. In this article, we discuss the history of software engineering environments with a particular focus on process-centered software engineering environments (PCSEEs). We discuss the notion of distributed software processes (as one of the most substantial current trends in software process research) and we motivate the notion of a software process middleware which serves as basis of real-world software processes spread over various sites. In addition, we discuss some other trends in the software process research arena.

In this chapter, an overview of the research progress both in software processes and software evolution are presented from the viewpoints of methodologies, technologies, tools and management. Firstly, the basic concepts related to software processes are discussed. In addition, an overview of the research progress in the areas of software process modelling and descriptions, software process modelling languages and description languages, software process improvement, CMM, software process reuse and process-centred software engineering environments is presented. Furthermore, the basic concepts related to software evolution are discussed. Finally, the work in the areas of software evolution and software reengineering is also discussed. The research outlined in this chapter shows that both software evolution and software process have become the hot spots in software engineering. The combination of software evolution and software process will promote smooth and effective software evolution.

In order to adapt the change from centralized development pattern to multi-user collaborative development pattern in modern software development, the concept of software collaborative development was proposed by introducing CSCW (computer-supported cooperative work) into the field of software development, and the properties of it was analyzed, then a formalized model SCP-NET of software collaborative development based on Petri net was founded. The establishment of model is based on the following two aspects: first, introducing the hierarchy mechanism, the complexity of the model was reduced; second, four states (ready, running, suspended and completed) of transition was introduced, the model could promote the coordination of the sub process in software collaborative development. Then the transition firing rule based on the model was proposed, it establishes the foundation for further analyzing, validating and improving the software collaborative development process model. Finally, the conclusion that the model SCP-NET can support the six important properties was validated.

The constant add up of new features and bug fixes often make invariable changes and refinements inevitable in the software development at regular intervals. The software should enable the end-user to decipher the critical version information about the minutest detail in every software artifact and if it does not, no software can be called as complete or nor is it user-friendly. When developers check in the software files they have to put in the version field manually as a part of header information inside the file. It would be difficult to identify vulnerabilities in the software when the files lack embedded version information which makes it harder for the end users to accurately identify the running version of the software. How can version control system (VCS) help in optimizing the bug traceability time and bug fixing potential? Version control system (VCS) is a software application that helps in collaborative software development of software projects. In order to support this instance, we should analyze which version control system is to be considered and whether to use central repository version control system or local repository version control system. Various functional, non functional evaluation criteria and fundamental requirements like installation, configuration, learning curve, performance, commits, branching, merging, and tagging have been considered for a through comparison of many version control systems. In this paper, we review and analyze the currently used VCS that involved in a view of a collaborative software development for software evolution. And an attempt has also been made to identify the version information in every deliverable file or retain it with the source. We demonstrate and perform survey on current versioning systems like Concurrent Version Control System (CVS), Subversion (SVN), Team Foundation Server (TFS), Git, ACME, Visual Source Safe(VSS), Mercurial and Clear Case, etc. that offers opportunities to test produced results and validate.

This paper presents RaisAware, a collaborative software development tool aimed at supporting the relationship between software architecture and coordination of software development activities. Our design is based on both dependency analysis of software development artifacts and software developers'

Pair Programming is an innovative collaborative software development methodology. Anecdotal and empirical evidence suggests that this agile development method produces better quality software in reduced time with higher levels of developer satisfaction. To date, little explanation has been offered as to why these improved performance outcomes occur. In this qualitative study, we focus on how individual differences, and specifically task conflict, impact results of the collaborative software development process and related outcomes. We illustrate that low to moderate levels of task conflict actually enhance performance, while high levels mitigate otherwise anticipated positive results.

With the rapid growth of web technology, more and more software development projects use web collaborations to facilitate the development process. However, web collaboration activity is a complex orchestration. It involves many people work together without the barrier of time and space difference. Therefore, how to efficiently monitor and control web collaboration activity becomes a critical issue in a web-based collaborative software development project. In this paper, we present a novel approach to tackle this difficult problem by means of monitoring collaboration task progress. In addition, we also provide solutions to automate the dynamic control of cooperation, thus to improve the web collaboration performance.

In globally distributed software development, many software developers have to collaborate and deal with issues of collaboration. Although collaboration is challenging, collaborative development produces better software than any developer could produce alone. Unlike previous work which focuses on the proposal and evaluation of models and tools to support collaborative work, this paper presents an interview study aiming to understand (i) the motivations, (ii) how collaboration happens, and (iii) the challenges and barriers of collaborative software development. After interviewing twelve experienced software developers from GitHub, we found different types of collaborative contributions, such as in the management of requests for changes. Our analysis also indicates that the main barriers for collaboration are related to non-technical, rather than technical issues.

This paper presents an object oriented framework for task scheduling. This framework can be used in domains such as process-centred software engineering environments, workflow management systems or project management systems. The framework was conceived based on both current methods for the development of frameworks and an existing architectural pattern for process managers. A prototype of the framework was developed using the Java language. The lessons learnt show the experience of extracting a framework from well-known applications that can be reused in practical domains. Thus, this work contributes not only in the production of a framework but also giving insights in the application of novel techniques to the development of frameworks.

Process-centered Software Engineering Environments, or PSEEs, are intended for the definition, modification, and enactment of software process models, they thus bring software development processes into effect. Even though research efforts in process-centered software engineering abound, PSEE technology has not received the attention that it deserves. In order to create a concise but effective and practically applicable evaluation framework for PSEEs, this paper first presents a survey of PSEEs and highlights the current state of the art of the technology. The PSEEs which have been reviewed herein have been regarded as software systems, and as such, have been characterized in terms of their requirements. After providing a conceptual critique of the scope and nature of conventional PSEEs, a detailed criteria-based evaluation of a select set of several recent PSEEs has been conducted. The evaluation criteria have been derived from PSEE requirements and the results of the critique, and have then been refined and evolved into the final criterion set.

The development and maintenance of software products are knowledge intensive tasks. Due to the high turnover of software industry, there is a great probability that the original designers are unlikely to be available when problems arise and modifications are needed. Therefore, having the reasons behind the decisions recorded can be invaluable as people leave and join the software team, because the knowledge about choices of those leaving would still be available to the newcomers. This work describes an approach to support the Technical Solution process through knowledge management in the context of a Process-centered Software Engineering Environment (PSEE) named TABA Workstation. It also presents some information related to a software process improvement initiative undertaken in a Brazilian organization that demonstrates the feasibility of the presented approach.Keywordstechnical solutiondesign rationaleknowledge management