Species evolve, individuals age

Abstract

The phenomenon of "software evolution" was observed back in the 1970s when the first large software systems were being developed, and it has attracted renewed attention in the 1990s. Yet, the difficulties of software evolution are still treated as problems that pop up unexpectedly in software projects. In this talk, I look at some possible reasons to explain this apparent contradiction and the possibly related confusion in software evolution research. I point out some ways we can make software evolution research more relevant to software engineering practice. My primary goal is to clarify that what evolves is not the software but our knowledge about a particular type of software.