ON SOME RECENT ADVANCES IN COMPLEX SOFTWARE NETWORKS: MODELING, ANALYSIS, EVOLUTION AND APPLICATIONS

Abstract

Complex software networks, as a typical kind of man-made complex networks, have attracted more and more attention from various fields of science and engineering over the past ten years. With the dramatic increase of scale and complexity of software systems, it is essential to develop a systematic approach to further investigate the complex software systems by using the theories and methods of complex networks and complex adaptive systems. This paper attempts to briefly review some recent advances in complex software networks and also develop some novel tools to further analyze complex software networks, including modeling, analysis, evolution, measurement, and some potential real-world applications. More precisely, this paper first describes some effective modeling approaches for characterizing various complex software systems. Based on the above theoretical and practical models, this paper introduces some recent advances in analyzing the static and dynamical behaviors of complex software networks. It is then followed by some further discussions on potential real-world applications of complex software networks. Finally, this paper outlooks some future research topics from an engineering point of view.