Software information systems
Premkomar Thomas Devanbu · Rutgers University eBooks · 1994
A key obstacle to higher productivity in large software systems is invisibility: the difficulty of locating needed information about the system under development. In this thesis, we introduce software information systems that use a knowledge base represented in description logic to help programmers find useful information. We describe how the representational and inferential services provided by description logics help address different aspects of software invisibility, and illustrate this with examples from an SIS for a specific telephonics system, Definity$\sp{TM}.$ We present enhancements to the description logic substrate needed in order to represent plan information, which is essential in describing our kinds of software. We also describe a variety of tools that aid in acquiring knowledge for a software information system from external sources. These include query generators and a portable system for querying abstract syntax trees of programs, which has found practical applications in a variety of other environments.