Exploring API/Client Co-Evolution

Abstract

Software libraries evolve over time, as do their APIs and the clients that use them. Studying this co-evolution of APIs and API clients can give useful insights into both how to manage the co-evolution, and how to design software so that it is more resilient against API changes. In this paper, we discuss problems and challenges of API and client code co-evolution, and the tools and methods we will need to resolve them.