Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!boulder!uswat!reuse!ken
From: ken@reuse.USWEST.COM (Kenny A. Chaffin)
Newsgroups: comp.sw.components
Subject: Reusable software assets at U S WEST
Message-ID: <229@reuse.USWEST.COM>
Date: 11 May 89 16:39:44 GMT
Distribution: comp.sw.components
Organization: U S WEST Advanced Technologies, Denver, CO
Lines: 41



In  a  mail  message  from Chesley  Reyburn  he  asks  about  the 
experiences  in software reuse at U S WEST. Here are  some  short 
hopefully to the point answers. 


>Are  you at liberty to talk about you experiences (did  anything 
>worth telling us about happen)?
  I  not  sure of the detail you are looking for but  I  was  not 
directly involved in the design and coding of the modules. We did 
produce guidelines for what reusable software assets are and  the 
various  flavors(which may or may not be generally  relevant)  in 
the IBM MVS/COBOL world. Much of the effort, as you may guess has 
been  in defining and determining what is reusable and how,  etc. 
As it turns out we worked with a particular project and ended  up 
with  several  versions  of  the  assets(our  term  for  reusable 
software).  The  biggest  problems  seem to be  in  the  area  of 
determining  what  functionality is appropriate to place  into  a 
general  purpose  asset. Also managing the  expectations  of  the 
project  developers  is important. They typically expect  all  or 
nothing.

>  Were  you  able to  develop  any  recognizable,  transferable, 
>methodology (can you tell us how you did it)?
     We  are  still working on establishing a  reusable  software 
methodology   which  works  in  conjunction  with  the   existing 
development methodologies. We have developed a preliminary domain 
analysis methodology (my area of work) which helps in identifying 
reuse  opportunities. We have standards regarding  documentation, 
high-level designs, etc which guide the process but we are  still 
struggling to formalize the entire process.

>Have  you-all published anything about your experiences (if  so, 
>did you write it up and where)? Currently we have not  published 
but are working up a couple of articles for submission to ACM  or
IEEE.

Ken Chaffin at U S WEST Software Assets group