Analysis and refactoring of software, dependency structure matrix

Software Intermittent Refactoring Support

SIRS GmbH Rationale Services Expertise areas Contact About

SIRS GmbH

Save money: free your software from dependency chaos

Example of the dependencies within a real instrumentation software.

This software works, however at the expense of unnecessarily large effort spent for maintenance, debugging and evolution.

Even given a clean starting architecture, complexity inadvertently increases during the evolution and maintenance of the software

Complexity should periodically be assessed

Simple statistics (number of code lines, classes, files, etc.) hardly reveals the depth of complexity. The clue is delivered yet by the object oriented metrics and the analysis of the dependency structure at various levels (system, component, class, operation).

Complexity should be reduced

Once the complexity is assessed, flaws can be identified (too big classes or methods, classes that do not comply with the basic design principles, detrimental and cyclic dependencies, etc.).

Then, the principles of the design patterns can be applied.

Software architecture can be re-engineered

The subsequent analysis of the improved dependency structure usually results in repartitioning of the components and, if feasible, in modification of the overall architecture.

SIRS GmbH refactoring process proceeds in three steps

SOURCE CODE ANALYSIS

Detailed assessment of the software metrics (statistics, complexity of the components, cohesion of the classes, etc.). Evaluation of the compliance with the coding rules.

DEPENDENCY ANALYSIS

Analysis of the dependency structure using Dependency Structure Matrix at the level of components, classes and methods. Identification of architectural rules (if any) and detrimental dependencies.

REFACTORING

Based on the dependency analysis, the ways of improvement are proposed at the level of components, classes and methods.

Other services

ARCHITECTURE CONCEPT FROM SCRATCH

Alternatively: assistance in designing the architecture of the system software (reviews, implementation of the crucial components).

TRANSITION FROM A SINGLE PRODUCT TO A PRODUCT LINE

Identification of variation points, definition of variants and of the common framework. Guidelines for meeting the requirements of various products within the product line.

WEB SERVICES

Data model and data storage in the cloud for Android applications

Expertise areas

Instrumentation Software

Embedded: Linux, ThreadX, ARM microprocessors, C++, Qt

PC-based: C++, C#, Qt, Python

Methodology

Model Driven Development with IBM Rhapsody

Agile interdisciplinary and multinational teamwork

Scrum Master

Working in Continuous Delivery environment

SIRS GmbH, Dr.sc.techn. M.Piechotka

Software Engineering

The owner of SIRS GmbH has 20-year experience in the industrial software development. He began as leading software engineer in a spin-off company of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) and has completed his employee curriculum vitae as Senior Software Architect at the R&D Department of Mettler Toledo GmbH. SIRS GmbH is his private initiative to support start-ups and other companies in developing, maintaining and improving the instrumentation software.

Scientific & Industrial Research

Prior to the above engagement, he spent 15 years in the applied scientific research. He was the principal co-investigator in the DCMF microgravity experiment carried out in 1996 onboard the Space Shuttle "Endeavour" (collaboration of ETH Zurich with European Space Agency and Contraves AG Zurich).