Software Maintenance

Abstract

This paper overviews software maintenance, its relevance, the problems, and the available solutions; the underlying objective is to present software maintenance not as a problem, but in terms of solutions. Of course, this view of maintenance does not apply to software, as software does not deteriorate with the use and the passing of time. Nevertheless, the need for modifying a piece of software after delivery has been with us since the very beginning of electronic computing. The Lehman’s laws of evolution [17, 18] state that successful software systems are condemned to change over time. A predominant proportion of changes is to meet ever changing user needs. This is captured by the first law of Lehman [17, 18]: “A program that is used in a real world environment necessarily must change or become progressively less useful in that environment”. Significant changes also derive from the need to adapt software to interact with external entities, including people, organizations, and artificial systems. In fact, software is infinitely malleable and, therefore, it is often perceived as the easiest part to change in a system [6].

Keywords: Corrective maintenance; Adaptive maintenance; Perfective maintenance; Emergency maintenance; iterative-enhancement