TOWARDS SYSTEMATIC REQUIREMENTS REUSE

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Abstract

Reuse has often been claimed in the software engineering literature to improve thequality and reduce the cost of software. Motivated by the idea that these gains canbe multiplied if reuse can be achieved earlier in the software life-cycle, a subset ofthe requirements engineering literature has focused, since the inception of the field,on investigating approaches to reuse at the requirements level. A wide array of differentapproaches now exist within this space. However, these approaches offer varyingdegrees of generality and utility. Generality is important because it enables a requirementsengineer to utilise the same reuse library across multiple projects. Utility isimportant because it is a measure of the extent to which effort is reduced by utilising areuse approach.This thesis presents Reuse-Oriented Requirements Engineering (RORE): a systematicframework to support the production of requirements models by reuse. RORE aimsto improve on existing requirements-reuse approaches in respect of the generalityutilitytrade-off. RORE seeks to do this by bringing together the strengths of two existingrequirements-level reuse approaches: The Domain Theory and Problem-OrientedSoftware Engineering (POSE - a refinement of Jackson’s Problem Frames Approach).This thesis evaluates RORE with respect to both generality and utility, and comparesRORE against both frameworks. The major conclusion of the thesis is that while ROREimproves on each framework in respect of some, but not all, evaluation metrics, ROREdoes succeed in offering a level of generality which compares favourably to existinghighly general approaches, and without significantly reducing the utility of the approach.

Layman's Abstract

This thesis provides a critique of reuse-driven approaches to the capture and analysis of software requirements, leading to a novel approach to requirements engineering in which models are transformed through a chain of different model types by means of the reuse of requirements patterns.

Keyword(s)

Model Transformation; Requirements; Requirements Engineering; Requirements Patterns; Software; Software Engineering; Software Patterns

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