CALCE: Computer-aided Life Cycle Enabling of Software Assets

CALCE

The funding and the consortium

CALCE is a so called ICT-Doorbraak project, subsidized by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs via Senter. The project code is TSIT3018, the other members of the consortium are:

The goal

The goal of the project is to develop technology and methods, such that:

Software assets (which may be known as legacy) can be modernized according to the current needs of the organization in relation with modern software technologies and architectures;
The proces of software maintenance can turned from a labor intensive ad-hoc proces into an efficient high-tech one.

For a further introduction (in Dutch) we refer to our flyer in PDF.

People

Steven Klusener (Project leaderVU Amsterdam)
Ralf Lämmel (Formerly VU Amsterdam, now at Microsoft)
Chris Verhoef (VU Amsterdam)
Ernst-Jan Verhoeven (VU Amsterdam)
Niels Veerman (VU Amsterdam)

Related sites of our research group

COBOL, our COBOL site.
Grammarware, our site on Grammar Engineering
HOSE, our site on the upcoming Handbook of Software Evolution
LPPR, our site on the LPPR project (LPPR: Language-Parametric Program Restructuring)
SERIOUS, our planned project with Philips, Infosupport and many other European partners. The Dutch funding is currently being evaluated in the SENTER program "Technologische Samenwerking".

Results and deliverables: tools and papers

As you will see below, many of the CaLCE results of the Free University has been published already in Science of Computer Programming. In the following TOP25 you will see that our papers are in the top of their hottest papers of April 2005. In fact, you can find us at position 1, 2, 9 and 11.

Year 1, September 2003 - September 2004

Evaluation of the generic language technology ASF+SDF (in the CaLCE context) (VU internal document).
CaLCE ASF+SDF Infrastructure for large scale software analysis and transformation (internal deliverable, will become public in the near future).
Tolerant COBOL Grammars , the paper Architectural Modifications to Deployed Software has recently been published in Science of Computer Programming (volume 54, 2005), the actual procedure to obtain these tolerant grammars and several examples of tolerant COBOL grammars, will become public in the near feature.
A Fortran Grammar (internal deliverable, will become public in the near future).
An analysis for COBOL control flow, particularly the fall-through in between sections and paragraphs. The analysis is visualized by generating so called DOT-graphs. This intermediate is the basis for currently ongoing work.
An evaluation of Software Transformation Technology. In this study we have compared the ASF+SDF approach for source code transformation with alternatives, like TXL. This study still needs to be finished before publication.
Techniques for Light-weight testing, which can be used within a software transformation project, without too much of an overhead. The associated paper has been accepted for publication in Science of Computer Programming, for which we refer to the home-page of Niels Veerman.
A start has been made with a Rule Evaluation Kit, to support transformational evolution of rule-based systems, for which we refer to the home-page of Ralf Lämmel.
On basis of earlier projects an approach for automated maintenance of a software portfolio has been further developed. The paper has been submitted for publication, for which we refer to the home-page of Niels Veerman.
On basis of earlier projects a study has been done on architectural modifications to deployed software. The paper has been published in Science of Computer Programming (volume 54, 2005).
On basis of earlier projects within a large financial organization an extensive study in Quantifying the effects of IT-governance rules has been done. The paper is in submission, we refer to the page on IT-Portfolio Management of Chris Verhoef

Year 2, Quarter 5 and 6 of the project

Pilot on COBOL Standardization. In this pilot we standardize several of the guidelines that are currently in use within the various teams of a large maintenance shop. These guidelines concern (1) the standardization of the syntax (use of scope terminators, consequent use of terminating period, etc), (2) consistent layout, (3) consistent naming conventions and (4) detection of dangerous control-flow. An internal report has been delivered to PinkRoccade Getronics.
Pilot on the selection of subsystems. In this pilot we detect two subsystems in a system that consists of a large collection of COBOL source code files. The business motivation is that the system itself has become redundant, only the two relevant subsystems have to remain in production. The analysis is implemented by the new RSCRIPT technology of Paul Klint An internal report has been delivered to PinkRoccade Getronics.
Pilot on system modernization. In this pilot we have investigated how a system can be migrated to a J2EE or .NET platform. Currently the system is implemented on a proprietary legacy platform, it contains a large number of screen definitions which will have to be implemented as web-pages. Also the relational database has to be migrated to a modern equivalent, like Oracle. An internal report has been delivered to PinkRoccade Getronics.