Zusammenfassung
Software evolution-in-the-large is a challenging issue. While most
research work concentrates on the evolution of “programs�, large
scale software evolution should be driven by much higher levels
of abstraction. Software architecture is an example of such abstraction.
The notion of co-evolution between architecture and implementation
has been identified and studied recently. This paper claims that
other abstraction dimensions should also be taken into account,
leading to what we call the 3D software space. This conceptual framework
is used to reason about evolution-in-the-large phenomena occurring
in industry. The meta dimension, which constitutes the core of the
MDA approach, is considered as fundamental. This paper makes the
distinction between appliware and metaware and put the lights on
meta-model and model co-evolution. Conversely to the MDA approach
which makes the implicit assumption that meta-models are neat, stable
and standardized, in this paper meta-models are considered as complex
evolving software artefacts that are most often recovered from existing
metaware tools rather than engineered from scratch. In fact, we
identified the notion of meta-model and model co-evolution in the
context of the evolution of a multimillion LOC component-based software
developed by one of the largest software companies in Europe.
Nutzer