Toward software artifacts ecosystem

Abstract

In the process of developing and maintaining a software product, many things are created and used that are called software artefacts. Software artifacts are created, changed, reused, and change relationships in the development and maintenance processes of a software product. The complexity and variety of software artifact relationships require adequate means of description and management. They may be a software artifacts ecosystem. In the article, for the first time, a concept of a software artifact ecosystem is proposed. The concept describes a generic model of the software artifacts ecosystem, which is the Cornerstone ecosystem type and consists of three actors — the platform, the software, and the artifact. Based on the generic model, the SD model of the software artifacts ecosystem is described. The roles of actors in the ecosystem are indicated, the relationships between actors are described. The developer's activities will be more efficient, the software is understandable, and the development and maintenance is cheaper when the styles (standards) are used. As case study, based on the generic model of the software artifacts ecosystem, a declarative model of the programming style ecosystem has been developed. Three-level model of programming style artifact is proposed. The tools and processes for creating and using a programming style artifact are developed and described.