This thesis presents an approach to rapid prototyping called behavioral demonstration that allows a system to be demonstrated at any point during its development. This approach is based on the operational specification approach to software design and uses a new, automation based life-cycle paradigm. This work describes a tool that supports behavioral demonstration called the behavioral demonstrator that collects and manages information typically lost during software system design but critically needed during maintenance. The tool also supports project-personnel management and software complexity and cost estimation. The research takes place in the context of a dialogue management system and software design methodology that features the logical and physical separation of the input, processing, and output components of interactive systems. / M.S.

This paper presents a hierarchical modeling method that can be used to simulate a Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS) at all levels of detail. The method was developed specifically to aid the software development needed for the hierarchy of computers that are present in an FMS. The method was developed by modeling an existing FMS. The models developed of the existing FMS are described in detail to provide an example of how to model other FMSs. The basic building blocks needed for designing other FMSs with this modeling method are provided. The models were written in the SIMAN simulation language. SIMAN was found to be an easy language to use for the hierarchical modeling of FMSs. / M.S.

Yes / Software testing is a part of software development process. However, this part is the first one to miss by software developers if there is a limited time to complete the project. Software developers often finish their software construction closed to the delivery time, they usually don¿t have enough time to create effective test cases for testing their programs. Creating test cases manually is a huge work for software developers in the rush hours. A tool which automatically generates test cases and test data can help the software developers to create test cases from software designs/models in early stage of the software development (before coding). Heuristic techniques can be applied for creating quality test data. In this paper, a GA-based test data generation technique has been proposed to generate test data from UML state diagram, so that test data can be generated before coding. The paper details the GA implementation to generate sequences of triggers for UML state diagram as test cases. The proposed algorithm has been demonstrated manually for an example of a vending machine.

The proliferation of open-source software development platforms has given rise to various online social communities where developers can seamlessly collaborate, showcase their projects, and exchange knowledge and ideas. GitHub stands out as a preeminent platform within this ecosystem. It offers developers a space to host and disseminate their code, participate in collaborative ventures, and engage in meaningful dialogues with fellow community members. This dissertation embarks on a comprehensive exploration of various facets of software development communities on GitHub, with a specific focus on innovation diffusion, repository popularity dynamics, code quality enhancement, and user commenting behaviors. This dissertation introduces a popularity-based model that elucidates the diffusion of innovation on GitHub. We scrutinize the influence of a repository's popularity on the transfer of knowledge and the adoption of innovative practices, relying on a dataset encompassing GitHub fork events. Through a meticulous analysis of developers' collaborative coding efforts, this dissertation furnishes valuable insights into the impact of social factors, particularly popularity, on the diffusion of innovation. Furthermore, we introduce a novel approach to computing a weight-based popularity score, denoted as the Weighted Trend Popularity Score (WTPS), derived from the historical trajectory of repository popularity indicators, such as fork and star counts. The accuracy of WTPS as a comprehensive repository popularity indicator is assessed, and the significance of having a singular metric to represent repository popularity is underscored. We delve into the realm of code quality on GitHub by examining it from the perspective of code reviews. Our analysis centers on understanding the code review process and presents an approach rooted in regularity to foster superior code quality by enforcing coding standards. In the concluding phase of our research, we investigate the intricacies of communication within technology-related online communities. Our attention is drawn to the impact of user popularity on communication, as elucidated through an examination of comment timelines and commenting communities. To contextualize our findings, we compare the behavioral patterns of GitHub developers and users on other platforms, such as Reddit and Stack Overflow.

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This work extends the area of research termed software metrics by applying measures of system structure and measures of system code to three realistic software products. Previous research in this area has typically been limited to the application of code metrics such as: lines of code, McCabe's Cyclomatic number, and Halstead's software science variables. However, this research also investigates the relationship of four structure metrics: Henry's Information Flow measure, Woodfield's Syntactic Interconnection Model, Yau and Collofello's Stability measure and McClure's Invocation complexity, to various observed measures of complexity such as, ERRORS, CHANGES and CODING TIME. These metrics are referred to as structure measures since they measure control flow and data flow interfaces between system components. Spearman correlations between the metrics revealed that the code metrics were similar measures of system complexity, while the structure metrics were typically measuring different dimensions of software. Furthermore, correlating the metrics to observed measures of complexity indicated that the Information Flow metric and the Invocation Measure typically performed as well as the three code metrics when project factors and subsystem factors were taken into consideration. However, it was generally true that no single metric was able to satisfactorily identify the variations in the data for a single observed measure of complexity. Trends between many of the metrics and the observed data were identified when individual components were grouped together. Code metrics typically formed groups of increasing complexity which corresponded to increases in the mean values of the observed data. The strength of the Information Flow metric and the Invocation measure is their ability to form a group containing highly complex components which was found to be populated by outliers in the observed data. / Ph. D.

In the world of software development, the most common framework is the agileframework. This framework first arose as a counter-reaction to waterfall development,mostly to incorporate user-centered design. But today the user-centered design and theuser are often overlooked. Still, some believe that the integration of user-centereddesign and agile development could help improve software development. Thisintegration is called user-centered agile design or UCAD for short. The main reason forconsidering UCAD over agile development is that software stands and falls with gooduser experience. Something that the user-centered perspective can help with.This thesis therefore sought to research the usage of UCAD in daily work with anautoethnographic approach. This meant that the author could use their experiencesfrom developing a piece of software as the basis of the research. This software was awebshop application for Quintus Technologies AB that acts as a way for their customersto buy spare and wear parts. The results were therefore in the form of a story told infirst-person perspective about the whole development period of about 20 weeks.This project found amongst other things that UCAD does hold some merit and theauthor also enjoyed this way of working. There were of course some problems, with thebiggest challenge being the act of trying to balance UX and functional tasks. To combatthis problem the notion of gear-switching was conceptualized. One specific factor thatwas brought up by earlier research was also found to be important. This factor was thetask factor and most importantly this factor brought up the consideration of tasks overroles. Whilst this project indicates that UCAD might be a good evolution of the agileframework there is still a lot more research that needs to be done mostly in differentsettings. Such as bigger teams and with more mature software. Whilst more research isneeded, this project still shows great potential for the UCAD framework.

This bachelor’s thesis investigates the efficacy of cutting-edge Large Language Models (LLMs) — GPT-4, Code Llama Instruct (7B parameters), and Gemini 1.0 — in detecting and correcting bugs in Java and Python code. Through a controlled experiment using standardized prompts and the QuixBugs dataset, each model's performance was analyzed and compared. The study highlights significant differences in the ability of these LLMs to correctly identify and fix programming bugs, showcasing a comparative advantage in handling Python over Java. Results suggest that while all these models are capable of identifying bugs, their effectiveness varies significantly between models. The insights gained from this research aim to aid software developers and AI researchers in selecting appropriate LLMs for integration into development workflows, enhancing the efficiency of bug management processes.

The research is conducted in the area of software methodologies with the emphasis on the integration of legacy systems with the client/server environment. The investigation starts with identifying the characteristics of legacy systems in order to determine the features and technical characteristics required of an integration methodology. A number of existing methodologies are evaluated with respect to their features and technical characteristics in order to derive a synthesis for a generic methodology. This evaluation yields the meta primitives of a generic methodology. The revised spiral model (Boehm,1986; DuPlessis & Vander Wah,1992) is customised to arrive at a software process model which provides a framework for the integration of legacy systems with the client/server environment. The integration methodology is based on this process model. / Computing / M. Sc. (Information Systems)