Software Reuse: Developers’ Experiences and Perceptions

William W. Agresti

.

DOI: 10.4236/jsea.2011.41006                

Abstract

Reusing programs and other artifacts has been shown to be an effective strategy for significant reduction of development costs. This article reports on a survey of 128 developers to explore their experiences and perceptions about using other people’s code: to what extent does the “not invented here” attitude exist? The survey was structured around a novel and simple “4A” model, which is introduced in this article: for an organization to obtain any benefits from reusing code, four conditions must obtain: availability, awareness, accessibility, and acceptability. The greatest impediments to reuse were shown to be awareness of reusable code and developers’ perceptions of its acceptability for use on their new projects. For 72% of developers, the complexity of the old code was cited as a reason that the code was not reused. The survey also included developers’ suggestions for ways to take greater advantage of existing code and related artifacts.

Keywords

Software Reuse, Survey, Software Development

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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