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Register a new userThe Impact of Traceability on Software Maintenance and Evolution: A Mapping Study
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Added by
Peng Liang
Publication date
2021
fields
Informatics Engineering
and research's language is
English
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Software traceability plays a critical role in software maintenance and evolution. We conducted a systematic mapping study with six research questions to understand the benefits, costs, and challenges of using traceability in maintenance and evolution. We systematically selected, analyzed, and synthesized 63 studies published between January 2000 and May 2020, and the results show that: traceability supports 11 maintenance and evolution activities, among which change management is the most frequently supported activity; strong empirical evidence from industry is needed to validate the impact of traceability on maintenance and evolution; easing the process of change management is the main benefit of deploying traceability practices; establishing and maintaining traceability links is the main cost of deploying traceability practices; 13 approaches and 32 tools that support traceability in maintenance and evolution were identified; improving the quality of traceability links, the performance of using traceability approaches and tools are the main traceability challenges in maintenance and evolution. The findings of this study provide a comprehensive understanding of deploying traceability practices in software maintenance and evolution phase, and can be used by researchers for future directions and practitioners for making informed decisions while using traceability in maintenance and evolution.
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Although computer science papers are often accompanied by software artifacts, connecting research papers to their software artifacts and vice versa is not always trivial. First of all, there is a lack of well-accepted standards for how such links should be provided. Furthermore, the provided links, if any, often become outdated: they are affected by link rot when pre-prints are removed, when repositories are migrated, or when papers and repositories evolve independently. In this paper, we summarize the state of the practice of linking research papers and associated source code, highlighting the recent efforts towards creating and maintaining such links. We also report on the results of several empirical studies focusing on the relationship between scientific papers and associated software artifacts, and we outline challenges related to traceability and opportunities for overcoming these challenges.
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