What is Software Mining / Application Mining?
Software Mining / Application
Mining is about source code analysis. Application source is the most
detailed and up-to-date drawing of an application. Source code contains answers to many
questions
about the application and the business it supports.
Source code analysis has always been a core part of software development and
maintenance
but more or less methodical depending on the system developers tools and ways
about it.
Not
only system developers can benefit from source code analysis,
roles like for example architects,
DBA, project leaders, quality managers, system- and requirement analysts can find
valuable
information in application source.
Industry
analysts have since a few years back given attention to the concept of
Software- and Application Mining
which includes both tools and methods for increasing the productivity by software
analysis.
Software- and Application
Mining can do what asset management tools, software documentation tools,
software understanding tools, xref tools and advanced search tools do all together.
Software Mining / Application Mining is
often described as the system developers equivalent of the business developers Data Mining.
A database for Software Mining / Application Mining is a data warehouse (DW)
for source code.
The source code is read and analyzed (parsed) into the database so that the information about the
source code is refined.
The table structure of the database enables graphical views over one or several interacting systems
also providing the user with powerful search capabilities.
The
system developers
can as the business
developers 'drill' down to find golden nuggets burried in a
sea of information.
Depending
on tool, the database can hold only metadata about the source or the whole
source.
| 
