Assessment of Three Evaluation Methods for Object-Oriented Framework Evolution

Object-oriented framework technology has become a common reuse technology in object-oriented software development. As with all software, frameworks tend to evolve. Once the framework has been deployed, new versions of a framework cause high maintenance cost for the products built with the framework. This fact in combination with the high costs of developing and evolving an object-oriented framework make it important to have controlled and predictable evolution of the framework?s functionality and costs. We present three methods 1) Evolution Identification Using Historical Information, 2) Stability Assessment and 3) Distribution of Development Effort which have been applied to between one to three different frameworks, both in the proprietary and commercial domain. The methods provide management with information which will make it possible to make well-informed decisions about the framework?s evolution, especially with respect to the following issues; identification of evolution-prone modules, framework deployment, change impact analysis, benchmarking and requirements management. Finally, the methods are compared to each other with respect to costs and benefits.