Towards a Process for Developing Maintenance Tools in Academia

Building of tools-from simple prototypes to industrial-strength applications-is a pervasive activity in academic research. When proposing a new technique for software maintenance, effective tool support is typically required to demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the approach. However, even though tool building is both pervasive and requiring significant time and effort, it is still pursued in an ad hoc manner. In fact, little research has addressed the question how to make tool building in academia more disciplined, predictable and efficient. In this paper, we address these issues by proposing a dedicated development process for tool building that takes the unique characteristics of an academic research environment into account. We first identify process requirements based on a review of the literature and our extensive tool building experience in the domain of maintenance tools. We then outline a process framework based on work products that accommodates the requirements while providing needed flexibility for tailoring the process to account for specific tool building approaches and project constraints. The work products are concrete milestones of the process, tracking progress, rationalizing (design) decisions, and documenting the current state of the tool building project. Thus, the work products provide important input for strategic project decisions and rapid initiation of new team members. Leveraging a dedicated tool building process promises tools that are designed, build, and maintained in a more disciplined, predictable and efficient manner.