Abstract
Data obtained during a 1968 study of the software process [8] led to an investigation of the evolution of OS/360 [13] and and, over a period of twenty years, to formulation of eight Laws of Software Evolution. The FEAST project recently initiated (see sections 4–6 below) is expected to throw additional light on the phenomenology underlying these laws, to increase understanding of them, to explore their finer detail, to expose their wider relevance and implications and to develop means for their beneficial exploitation. This paper is intended to trigger wider interest in the laws and in the FEAST study of feedback and feedback control in the context of the software process and its improvement to ensure beneficial exploitation of their potential.
Numbered in order of formulation and publication. Over the years the names and detailed wording of some of the laws have been modified but the underlying understanding they reflect has remained essentially the same
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Baumol W J: Macro-Economics of Unbalanced Growth; The Anatomy Of Urban Cities. Am. Econ. Rev. June 1967, pp. 415–426.
Becker R S, Hall B, and Rustem B: Robust Optimal Control of Stochastic Nonlinear Economic Systems. J. of Economic Dynamics and Control, n. 18, 1994,pp. 125–148.
Belady L A and Lehman M M: An Introduction to Program Growth Dynamics. In Statistical Computer Performance Evaluation. W Freiburger (ed), Academic Press, New York, 1972, pp. 503–511.
Brooks F: The Mythical Man Month. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA., 1975, 2nd ed. 1993, p. 206.
Chong Hok Yuen C K S: Phenomenology of Program Maintenance and Evolution. PhD Thesis, Dept. of Comp., Imp. Col., 1981.
M M Lehman (ed.): Preprints of the three FEAST Workshops, Dept. of Comp., ICSTM, 1994/5.
Lawrence M J: An Examination of Evolution Dynamics. Proc. Proc. 6th Int. Conf. on Softw. Eng., Tokyo, Japan, 13–16 Sep. 1982. IEEE Comp. Soc. ord. n. 422, IEEE cat. n.81CH1795-4, pp. 188–196.
Lehman M M: The Programming Process. IBM Res. Rep. RC 2722, IBM Res. Centre, Yorktown Heights, NY 10594, Sept. 1969.
Lehman M M: Programs, Cities, Students, Limits to Growth?, Inaugural Lecture, May 1974. Publ. in Imp. Col ofSc. Tech. Inaug.l Lect. Ser., vol 9, 1970, 1974, pp. 211–229. Also in Programming Methodology, (D Gries ed.), Springer, Verlag, 1978, pp. 42–62.
Lehman M M: Laws of Program Evolution — Rules and Tools for Programming Management. Proc. Infotech State of the Art Conf., Why Software Projects Fail, Apr. 1978, pp. 11/1 11/25.
Lehman M M: On Understanding Laws, Evolution and Conservation in the Large Program Life Cycle. J. of Sys. and Software, 1:3, 1980, pp. 213–221.
Lehman M M: Programs, Life Cycles and Laws of Software Evolution. Proc. IEEE Special Issue on Software Engineering, 68:9, Sept. 1980, pp. 1060–1076.
Lehman M M and Belady L A: Program Evolution — Processes of Software Change. Academic Press, London, 1985, pp. 538.
Lehman M M: Uncertainty in Computer Application and its Control Through the Engineering of Software. J. of Software Maintenance: Research and Practice, 1:1, Sept. 1989, pp. 3–27.
Lehman M M: Software Engineering, the Software Process and Their Support. IEE Softw. Eng. J. Spec. Iss. on Software Environments and Factories, Sept. 1991, 6:5, pp. 243–258.
Lehman M M: Process Improvement — the Way Forward. Proc. CAiSE 95, Jyvaskyla, June 1995, Lect. Notes in Comp. Sci., Springer Verlag, pp. 1–11.
Lehman M M, Perry D E and Turski W M: Why is it so hard to find Feedback Control in Software Processes? Invited Talk, Proc. of the 19th Australasian Comp. Sc. Conf., Melbourne, Australia, 31 Jan–Feb 2 1996. pp. 107–115.
Lehman M M and Stenning V: FEAST/1: Case for Support, ICSTM, March 1996.
Ould M A: Business Processes — Modelling and Analysis for Re-engineering and Improvement. Wiley, Chichester, 1995.
Scarrott G A: Private communication, June 1993.
W M Turski: Reference Model for Smooth Growth of Software Systems. U. of Warsaw, June 1996, Submitted for publication, available for perusal only from Prof. W M Turski, Dept. of informatics, University of Warsaw, Banacha 2, 00-903 Warsaw 59, Poland.
Wilkes M V, Wheeler D J and Gill S: The Preparation of Programs for an Electronic Digital Computer. Addison Wesley Press Inc., 1951, 167 pp.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1996 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Lehman, M.M. (1996). Laws of software evolution revisited. In: Montangero, C. (eds) Software Process Technology. EWSPT 1996. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1149. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0017737
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0017737
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-61771-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-70676-2
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive