Providing Automated Holistic Process and Knowledge Assistance during Software Modernization

Software modernization remains a difficult, highly intellectual, labor-intensive, collaborative, and risky undertaking involving software engineers interacting in knowledge-centric processes. While many tools and several methodologies are available, current modernization projects lack adequate automated and systematic operational process support. This chapter provides an introduction to the topic of automated process and knowledge assistance for software modernization, giving background information on related work in this area, and then expounds on various problems. To address these, a holistic solution approach and guidance framework called the Context-Aware Software Engineering Environment Event-Driven Framework (CoSEEEK) is described, which can support developers on software modernization projects, addressing such aspects as process dynamicity, extrinsic processes, process exception handling, coordination, quality assurance, and knowledge provisioning. Subsequently, future research directions are discussed and a conclusion is drawn.