Implications of evolution metrics on software maintenance

In the context of a hypothesis attributing the slow progress in achieving major global software process improvement, in part, to overlooking the role of feedback in that process, the FEAST/1 project is studying the impact of feedback on software evolution. Amongst its activities the project is analysing metrics of the evolution of several industrial systems, ranging from a financial transaction system to a very large real time system. The similarities which have emerged from a comparison of evolution metrics from several systems, support conclusions reached in a 1970s study of OS/360 evolution. The latest results suggest some refinement of earlier conclusions but indicate that both the metrics and the conclusions derived from them must be taken into account in the planning and implementation of successful software maintenance. Papers discussing the FEAST/1 results may accessed via the FEAST web page [fwp98].