On opportunistic software reuse

The availability of open source assets for almost all imaginable domains has led the software industry to opportunistic design —an approach in which people develop new software systems in an ad hoc fashion by reusing and combining components that were not designed to be used together. In this paper...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Computing 2020-11, Vol.102 (11), p.2385-2408
Main Authors: Mäkitalo, Niko, Taivalsaari, Antero, Kiviluoto, Arto, Mikkonen, Tommi, Capilla, Rafael
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Architecture
Artificial Intelligence
Computer Appl. in Administrative Data Processing
Computer Communication Networks
Computer Science
Computers
Design
Information Systems Applications (incl.Internet)
Popularity
Product lines
Regular Paper
Reuse
Software Engineering
Software industry
Software quality
Software reuse
Subsystems
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Summary:The availability of open source assets for almost all imaginable domains has led the software industry to opportunistic design —an approach in which people develop new software systems in an ad hoc fashion by reusing and combining components that were not designed to be used together. In this paper we investigate this emerging approach. We demonstrate the approach with an industrial example in which Node.js modules and various subsystems are used in an opportunistic way. Furthermore, to study opportunistic reuse as a phenomenon, we present the results of three contextual interviews and a survey with reuse practitioners to understand to what extent opportunistic reuse offers improvements over traditional systematic reuse approaches.
ISSN:0010-485X
1436-5057
DOI:10.1007/s00607-020-00833-6