Maintenance support needs for object-oriented software

Abstract

The object-oriented (OO) programming paradigm for developing software systems has become more mainstream in the past several years. Existing research into the use of the OO paradigm is heavily biased toward front-end problems: design, programming languages, and development environments. Lost in this has been support for maintenance of OO system, yet maintenance is 80% of the effort for successful software systems. This paper focuses on software tools that support and enhance the software maintenance effort for OO systems. As the industry matures in its use of OO concepts, systems will move along a spectrum of object-oriented-ness, from non-OO systems at one end to fully OO systems at the other. Each end of the spectrum has different maintenance and tools needs.<>