With software maintenance costs averaging 50% of total computing costs, it is necessary to have an effective maintenance program in place. Aging legacy systems, for example, pose an especially rough challenge as veteran programmers retire and their successors are left to figure out how the systems operate. This book explores program analyzers, reverse engineering tools, and reengineering tools in-depth and explains the best ways to deploy them. It also discusses using XML-based tools, the roles of software components, object technology, and metaprogramming in improving systems maintenance, as well as how to align software with business goals through strategic maintenance.

This book explores various aspects of software creation and development as well as data and information processing. It covers relevant topics such as business analysis, business rules, requirements engineering, software development processes, software defect prediction, information management systems, and knowledge management solutions. Lastly, the book presents lessons learned in information and data management processes and procedures.

Code clones are recurring similar program structures. Several techniques exist to detect similar code fragments (simple clones) for better software maintenance, but further gains can be obtained by by detecting similar classes, source files or directories. Structural clones embody such large-granularity, design-level similar program structures that often map to design or application domain concepts. Detection of structural clones leads to a better understanding of the design of the system, easing software maintenance, evolution, and re-engineering. Unification of structural clones with generic program structures helps in program simplification and reuse. This book introduces structural clones and describes a technique for their systematic detection. The usefulness and scalability of the proposed method is validated via experimentation using the structural clone detection tool 'Clone Miner'. Structural clones also offer opportunities for unconventional reuse that reaches beyond reuse rates achievable with architecture- centric, component-based approaches, and also brings reduction of cognitive program complexity.