Program Transformations for Evolving Object-Oriented Software Systems

Developing good software designs takes a great deal of experience and experimentation. Design patterns capture the experience of object-oriented software architects by documenting preferred ways to extend and structure object-oriented software. What is needed is a facility for experimenting with different designs using design patterns. Our preliminary research indicates that design patterns can be introduced in evolving software systems via automated program transformations. This proposal calls for the identification of design patterns used in program evolution and the development of a suite of transformations which automate the use of these patterns. The result will be a tool for rapidly evolving software designs which are more extensible and easier to reuse, while reducing the number of errors introduced as software evolves. The Appendix (University of Texas, Department of Computer Sciences Technical Report 95-06), describes this work in further detail. 1 Introduction Ev..