Agents for case-based software reuse

The effective reuse of previously engineered components has become a core activity in any object-oriented software development project. The task is, however, often problematic when it comes to actual retrieval and understanding of the class library in, e.g., Java. Newcomers, especially, in a software company or novices in Java programming will need time to obtain a good overview of available components. This article explores the use of intelligent agents in a case-based tool for software reuse. By introducing agent support to the retrieval mechanism of the tool we show how retrieval efficiency may be improved. The cooperating agents assist the user in retrieval of code for potential reuse in an automated way and in the background. This makes it possible for the developer to concentrate fully on her task. The tool aids in program understanding and adaptation. Thus, it allows an exploratory approach to program development and increases reuse efficiency.