Dependency models as a basis for analyzing software product platform modularity : a case study in strategic software design rationalization

It is broadly accepted among software managers and architects that maintaining the integrity of software designs is important for the long-term health and viability of software product platforms. The use of modular, information-hiding architectures is considered beneficial in this regard, because they enable the addition of new features and the correction of software defects without widespread changes (Parnas, 1972; Parnas, 1978). Moreover, modular architectures in general add value to system designs by creating options to improve the system by substituting or performing experiments on individual modules (Baldwin and Clark, 2000). Recent research has sought to clarify and to define formally these notions of modularity, and their value in the software domain, though the use of software dependency models and software design structure matrices. These models provide a graphic representation of the relationships between the building blocks of large software systems, which can be used to aid visual understanding of their structure, and which also form the basis for quantitative metrics for evaluating the degree of modularity of a software system (MacCormack et al., 2005; Sangal et al., 2005; Sullivan et al., 2006).

Department dc:contributor.department

System Design and Management Program.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• LaMantia, Matthew J. (Matthew John)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• James M. Utterback.

• System Design and Management Program.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/35110

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/35110